Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Discover Your Own Reason to Vote

If you are a U.S. registered voter, today is the day — the day to vote. I know the candidates, the pundits, your friends, and even robots have been giving you the dumbest reasons imaginable to vote for one candidate or another all year long. But none of that matters now. This is your best chance all year to express an intention for the larger world around you. That is what is really at stake here.

I mean, look, the biggest reason why politics is so dark and ugly is that some of the powerful people out there want to discourage you. They spend millions of dollars to manipulate the media and the political process just to keep you from getting involved. It’s not that they want to keep your candidate or your party from winning. It’s that they want to keep you, and the majority of people, from having any say in what goes on in the world. If you have any kind of active intention about the world, that could interfere with their intention about what should happen in your life — so they make sure politics is filled with infuriating illogic and nonissues.

You don’t have to play that game to be a voter. You don’t have to be serious about it or take a stand on the issues that other people say are important. Just decide something and put it on the ballot. And the world will take note.