Waiting For the Final Count

One Man’s Journey Through This Election

In 1976, I rode a train from Paris, to the end of the line in Calais, France and ended up having to walk to the ferry on my way back to Dover, England. It was midnight and no taxis were around, so for two hours I walked in the dark, hoping I wouldn’t get lost and would eventually find my way to the port.

At about 2 am, my resolve failed me and not feeling confident about where I was actually heading — and with all signs being in French — I turned around and walked the two hours back to the train station.

There, I finally found a taxi waiting and had him drive me down the same road, around the same turns and right past the point where I had stopped. I was less than half a mile from where I needed to be, but I couldn’t see through the darkness, that I was almost there.

This memory came back to me this morning as I hesitantly looked at last night election results. It reminded me of how I was feeling. Lost, with the numbers still not making any sense.

I know that people are different. I know that five people watching a car drive past can give five different descriptions of what it looked like. I understand this, but in a way that simply doesn’t resolve the question of why.

How do so many people call a blue car — black or dark green or beige? Were they not paying attention? Was the exercise so unimportant that it didn’t warrant their full attention? Blue, green or beige, who cares — not my car.

Is this how elections go?

He looks like he can do a good job — nice suit. He talks like he’s not a politician — so he probably doesn’t think like one either — good point.

When we look at a candidate or a car, are we thinking the same thing — what does it mean to me?

Is it selfish to only think of ourselves at a time like this or is it human nature to think about that person or that thing and how it will impact our life? Will he give me the best chance for my investments to improve in the stock market?

Will he limit the number of people going after my job?

Reasonable questions when survival is on the line. Makes sense.

Or does it?

The problem with being selfish is that it often prevents a two-way flow of information. When a person is concerned about themselves, their hardships and pain, they look for solutions that fit with their point of view. That gives voice to their grievance, their discomfort. And anything that conflicts with it or opens up too broad a discussion, is discarded. It takes attention off what they want fixed.

When our last unemployment check has been cashed, we don’t really want to hear about how someone else is doing. We’re not unfeeling, it just seems irrelevant at that moment in time.

But communication, discussion, discourse, or whatever else you want to call in, brings into view other points of view, that eventually will have something to say about your problem. And if we’ve closed off the line so that nothing further can move across it, then our decisions will be based on what was known in the past.

And in today’s matrix of information and life, the past is 15 minutes ago. Information brought forward today won’t change what someone did or didn’t do in the past, but it will reveal what they were thinking. What their intentions were.

DAY TWO OF WAITING

The blood pressure has gone down a bit. The anxiety level is now consistent with standing in the middle of traffic — down from where it was Tuesday night. But the questions are still pinballing around inside my head — smashing into one another — as I try to make sense of what appears senseless.

Maybe I’ll figure it out, maybe I won’t. Maybe it can’t be.

What is causing this level of anxiety, is that after 67 years of living and listening and talking and engaging with thousands of people from all walks of life, I thought I had a pretty good handle on what made people tick. Not fully mind you, but a good notion of what the go-buttons were all about.

But politics today has become some lab experiment gone terribly awry. Left in the petri dish for way too long until what is living in there now, doesn’t resemble anything that we’re familiar with. Anything that I am familiar with.

Other than the labels: Senator, Congresswoman, President, I’m at a loss as to what they’re thinking or doing.

I, and many others, vote them into office. I, along with these others, voice our concerns. What we feel is essential to have a good decent life. And instead of listening and trying to keep those concerns in mind, they march off in directions that defy logical. That go against our wishes. They make us feel that we are shouting into an empty office.

So, in anger, we lash out and send our vote careening in a whole new direction. One that is destined to make a difference.

Which brings me back to the point made above about selfishness. When it enters the fray; when it dictates what we think and what we do, then we are indeed, walking in the middle of traffic. Risking a great deal in an honest attempt to make someone listen.

This political system of ours is damaged. Like an old covered bread wagon, that has been “fixed” and altered and rearranged so many times over the years that it more closely resembles a memorial to obsolescence than something to move forward with.

What will happen in the next few days will be huge. That is all I am certain of.

But after going back over the results and the Ads used leading up to it; and the rhetoric, and the tweets issued, the rants given access to over podcasts and radio shows, I am convinced that we’re running backwards and deluding ourselves into thinking this is progress.

This election was supposed to be a referendum on reason returning to the political landscape. On hope being reinserted into our daily lives as loved ones died from a disease that did not really exist. While appearing on lists that had no actual meaning.

I know, what was I thinking.

But that’s the thing — I wasn’t — thinking that is. I was feeling. As deeply as I could in the hopes that I would connect with others out there who were feeling the same things.

And I won’t stop. Whatever happens.

I am old enough to have seen our system work. Not perfectly by any stretch, but function toward an end result that started somewhere along the line with us. Today — it runs more like a hybrid.

A subtle mix of pick-up truck, cement mixer, steamroller, dumpster and driver-less lawnmower, cruising down the political highways spewing toxic fumes out the rear-end like it owned the road and had no one to answer to.

But it’s our system, right?

Or maybe not. What are we thinking of doing about it?