On Election Eve
I wanted to take a brief moment to share some thoughts on this, the night before the big day everyone seems to be thinking about. Particularly in relation to the national-scale elections, i want to emphasize my hope that, as of now, we have already made progress, that perhaps we have already won.
By "we" i do not mean any particular political party, or supporters of any particular candidate this time around, or proponents of any specific social outlook or agenda. The "we" to which i refer is the compassionate, hopeful and well-wishing people of the world who exist on all sides of all of the fences in which the others try to pen us, and who are genuinely trying to make it a better place, regardless of the methods or associations to which we cling in order to do so.
I want to encourage all of us to emphasize the kinds of discussions and issues that this election has brought to light. I want all of us to focus not on the election's outcome, but on the general social awareness that has been raised -- even if only marginally -- by the perceived poignancy of the races' effects on our nation.
I want to encourage people to be attached not to any administration-to-be, but to the energy and outreach that has welled up here, in the hopes that we might keep that momentum. It was this same wish that prompted me to endorse a particular primary candidate awhile back, even tho i do not push for or against that candidate now because i wish for you to vote (or not vote) as you believe is best, as i will.
I want to emphasize this so that people will neither rely on the winner to save the world for them, nor lose hope if the candidate they believed was needed to bring about betterment ends up the loser.
I want to do this because i believe that far more than the outcome of any single election, regardless of how critical it may seem in the heat of the present moment, it is the conduct of the people that will bring change, and it will come on a timescale far greater than four or eight years.
I want to do this so that we will not rest quietly if tomorrow's election is decided by a controversially anomalous outcome in Ohio, or made a circus by a ridiculous legal battle in Florida.
I want to do this so that we will not rest quietly knowing that our largely-singular mass media still dominate the flow of information to nearly all Americans.
I want to do this so that we will not rest quietly with the pathetic tactics used by major parties and lobbyists to interfere with the processes of our supposed democracy.
I want to do this so that we will not rest quietly in toleration of the lack of national standards for the electoral process, the primitive winner-take-all systems that perpetuate our stagnant two-party system, and the deplorably shameful campaign "regulations" that keep most truly honest candidates from ever being heard.
I want to do this so that we will not rest quietly in smug pride or exhausted desperation tomorrow, cultivating the political notions and frail human inclinations that forcibly divide us, while the real responsibility to reach out to each other and change the world remains as ripe and ours as ever.
And most of all...
...i want to do this so that people might perhaps stop thinking that they need to choose the winning side to change the world, because it is in not creating sides at all that we will make the world a better place.
I am not a conspiracy theorist or an anarchist, but i am a cynic. As such, i really don't care who you vote for tomorrow, and on the national level i honestly don't even care all that much if you vote at all. What i care about are the things that we're doing, however small, every day -- not just once every one or two or four Novembers -- to bring about the change that our communities, country and planet so desperately need.
This is why tomorrow's big outcome is not so critical to me, despite what remains of my idealistic hope that maybe it could have some broad positive impact. This is why i want to encourage us all to look at the discourse and activism and motivation that the election has brought about, and think of that as the outcome. If we do not, we risk losing the little bit of real progress that we can count on having made, the part that could grow not over four years but over forty into something truly meaningful.
So on the "big day", go ahead and enjoy the fun, experience the exhilaration, rally at the sport, but please do not lose sight of the reality: regardless of what happens, the challenge of tomorrow will be establishing our lasting realization that the real campaign -- the one for ourselves -- has only just begun.