A Trail of Burning Bridges

What is that noise?  It’s faint, but if I’m hearing it correctly, I think it is opportunity knocking on my door.  It would be easier to hear, of course, if there weren’t so many distractions and loud noises attempting to drown it out.  While opportunity can often be more obscure, noise is relentless in its efforts to gain undivided attention.  Nevertheless, they are both competing for the same thing.  Opportunity wants us to vote in the upcoming election, while the noise would prefer that we sit on the bench and not participate at all.  Noise is fully aware of the fact that with opportunity comes change.  Because noise prefers the status quo, and sometimes even regression, it will deliberately prohibit progress, thereby encouraging us to remain stagnant.  You see, noise waged a war against opportunity a long time ago and has managed to successfully create a smokescreen that serves no other true purpose than disruptive confusion.   The challenge was, and has always been, determining who among us provides opportunity and who represents the noise.  We have become skilled at listening without actually hearing because the truth is, by adding to the crescendo of noise we simply cannot hear opportunity knocking on our doors.  We have reached a crossroad and are in a consequential race against both time and noise.

Benjamin Franklin said, “If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.”  Time.  It’s the one thing we desperately want more of while we simultaneously squander it.  Yet despite the many futile attempts to stop or slow its steady and seemingly breathtaking pace, time continues to move on.  Many of us can remember moments from our past that feel like yesterday.  It was a time that our youth today would likely struggle to understand.   When there was really no such thing as too much information, because we liked it that way.  When the idea of ‘sharing’ was mentioned, people were mostly talking about sugar.  When friends and neighbors were busy on the weekends mending fences rather than spending their valuable time burning bridges.  When there was a general contentment with subtlety, privacy and personal space.  When there was a secret code, an unspoken agreement, among society members that some things were off limits.  A mutual understanding that several subjects were still considered to be sacred and kept close to the vest.  Today, however, looks much different.  Too much information and oversharing is commonplace while the secret code is no longer really a secret anymore.  Views and opinions of all kinds are on full display not the least of which includes our political preferences.

Since the beginning of time, or as far back as history purports, we know that politics has been a catalyst in many conversations among both friend and foe.  Generally speaking, politics is not for the faint of heart.  Periodically, like approximately every four years, our nation as a whole undergoes a reckoning.  A usually reliable placard on the calendar that determines the direction and overall stability of our country which is ultimately based on who is elected to be our leader.  Benjamin Franklin is remembered as an exemplary historical figure, was notably unattached to a specific team, otherwise known as an ‘Independent’, and was one of the founding fathers of the U.S. Constitution.  If he were to see the United States today, putting aside the obvious fact that it is unrecognizable, he would probably not exactly be impressed with our current – how do I say this delicately? –  situation.  Maybe he would say, “I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.”  And that is a fact.  We have become a society that speaks freely simply because the 1^st Amendment says we can.   In truth, the Constitution, sometimes referred to as the American User Guide, affords us many freedoms and rights that mostly live in the periphery of our existence until, of course, we sense that there has been a breach.  We will pull out the latest version of the User Guide and study the terms and list of rights until we identify, with some level of certainty, which one has been violated.

Currently, it is the 15^th Amendment, in concert with the 19^th and 26^th Amendments, that is where our focus is today.   Voting.  Abraham Lincoln is quoted as having said, “Elections belong to the people.  It’s their decision.  If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”  Exactly.  Voting is a right that we enjoy, however, much like time, we squander it.  Sometimes we show up at the polls, and sometimes we don’t.  But Franklin D. Roosevelt added, “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely.  The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”  So then it’s education.  Understanding what is at stake and exactly what is on the voting ballot is where we are supposed to start.  However, that is not exactly how it always goes down because for most voting is very personal. History tells us that voters do not necessarily vote on what they know through the onerous process of educating themselves.  Rather, they instinctively vote on what they need.   Benjamin Franklin said, “Necessity never made a good bargain.”  If that’s true, then while the individuals who are representing the teams get all of the attention, voters are not taking the time necessary to educate themselves on the real issues that will inevitably affect them.  Perhaps if the ballot listed ‘Opportunity’ and ‘Noise’ in place of the team representatives, election outcomes would be more decisive. 

Overall, elections have become more about feeling obligated to choose a side and a specific team.  And right, wrong or indifferent, elections are not about a single person or which color jersey you choose to wear.  Anyone can see, if they are paying attention, that the country is not exactly evenly divided.  You don’t have to take my word for it because, much to everyone’s surprise, numbers really do not lie.  The majority of voters are decisively independent.  What does that mean?  That means that although they are reluctant to choose a specific team, they are not oblivious to the issues and are fully aware of what is not printed on the ballot.  However, in this impending election, there are two very distinct issues on the ballot that are prominently displayed.  They are Opportunity and Noise.  That is a truth that makes some squeamish and uncomfortable.  Yet truth is a constant and doesn’t really care if you believe it or not.  It won’t change just to make you feel better.  And, in the end, truth eventually emerges victorious, repelling its challengers, non-believers and doubters, forcing them back into a submissive state where they can lick their wounds and ice their bruises. 

But it’s not always that simple, is it?  We want to believe that we are all guided by the same set of rules, and unfortunately, find ourselves more often than not disappointed.  As we inch closer to the election, we allow our political persuasions to speak on our behalf with more frequency.   Benjamin Franklin is quoted as having said, “Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”  Which really just means that being incapable of biting one’s own tongue is not new.  Once again calling into question the idea of ‘agree to disagree’ and all that it implies.  When the idea of truth and facts becomes interpretive and irreproachable because we have selectively chosen a team.  On social media, friends and family ‘unfriending’ friends and family upon the sobering realization that their political views are unaligned creating chaos amidst the anger and hurt feelings.  Then it begs the question:  what are our political views and alliances really worth to us?  When we cast our ballot and ‘vote with our heart’, but must also remember that the ballot is not the equivalent of a Valentine’s Day card. 

Leaders lead and followers follow.   That is true no matter what color jersey you choose to wear.  Dwight D. Eisenhower is quoted as having said, “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity.  Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”   Then it would seem that along with Opportunity and Noise on the ballot, voters must also take into consideration who, of the vying team representatives, possesses the integrity necessary to lead thereby making them worthy of having followers.  But what is it that makes us follow those who blatantly propagate unsubstantiated falsehoods? When reality is twisted until it is transformed into something that is no longer recognizable.  Make no mistake, that is just Noise working overtime to keep us distracted and likely confused. The fact remains that although there might be various colors that can be used to describe the severity of a lie, truth comes in but one shade.  George Washington said, “Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.”

We can find evidence throughout history that civil unrest in America is not new.  However, what is different this time is we are not learning about it in a history book or a movie, because we are living and breathing it.  We are seeing firsthand how a single decision has the ability to impact us all and either throw us into an uncontrollable tailspin or guide us towards the so-called American Dream that was built inside the Land of Opportunity.  So now it’s our turn to make a choice.  It is our turn to raise our voices together and silence the unrelenting noise.  This noise that has washed over our country, dulling our senses while simultaneously normalizing uncertainty.   The one and only tried and true tool that we all have in our toolbox, is to exercise our powerful, and impenetrable, right to vote.   Susan B. Anthony said, “Someone struggled for your right to vote.  Use it.”  A vote has the ability to guide us back to the route that leads to opportunity.  Or.  We can apprehensively continue down an unsettling path leaving behind us a trail of burning bridges. 

DISCLAIMER:  All quotes and references were found on wikipedia.com, brittanica.com and brainyquotes.com.  All quotes are understood to be actual true statements and referenced for the sole purpose of illustrating a point.  Quotes have been bolded and italicized to appropriately provide a delineation from the author’s personal perspectives.