Not voting is part of the problem

I was reading the post Canadian election results on cbc.ca and one of their lead stories was that only 59.1 percent of Canadians voted in the last election: a new record low. One of the first user comments I read I believe is quite telling of this phenomenon, ‘I didn’t vote because there is no difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives, it’s like voting for the worse of two evils’. This of course was met with the standard response, ‘If you don’t vote you can’t complain”, but I don’t think that is a valid retort anymore. What we should say to people who don’t vote is, “If you don’t vote you are part of the problem”! Politicians count on people not voting, they actually want people to not vote, why? Because it makes their job easier, they don’t have to care about as many people and can tailor their message to the fewer number of people that do vote.

Let’s look at some numbers to illustrate my point; the Conservatives won only 37.63 percent of the popular vote, the Liberals 26.24. the NDP 18.20, the Bloc 9.97, and the Greens 6.80. For the time being lets forget about the fact that the Bloc can win 50 seats in the house of commons with only 9.97% of the vote while the Greens get none with 6.80%. I think it’s pretty safe to assume that a good chunk of the 40.9% of people who voted probably wouldn’t have voted Bloc so that leaves the other 4 parties. I could be very wrong in this assumption but I feel that many of the 40.9% probably wouldn’t have voted Conservative, they may not have even voted Liberal, they seem more likely to have voted for a candidate that they knew wouldn’t get in. If either of the two leading parties knew that extra 40.9% was voting they would need to court that share of the vote in order to keep power, they would need to broaden their policies to something more people liked which would effectively make them less evil. So, by not voting you are actually further perpetuating the problem with the system. Working the argument even further, by not voting you are actually hurting the system even more because even parties receives money for each vote they get. This is to give smaller parties a leg up in future elections and help them build a solid base.

The Morning After

I think I know why I often get so upset when I’m partying. It has very little to do with the alcohol itself and more to do with the fact that I’m chasing the high of previous party memories. I have in my memory the perfect party nights; nights where you feel absolutely invincible and totally in tune with the life force around you. It’s the memories that you wouldn’t trade for anything. To get to that state is almost pure serendipity and often I think I try and force it. It just doesn’t seem nearly as often anymore that the people I am partying with are on the same page. Perhaps it is just life starting to pull everyone in their own different directions now, we no longer all have the same singular set of experiences to draw from as everyone is starting to more off towards bigger aspirations. For a while though it just felt so perfect, it felt like we were the only people in the world who got it. We may not have been directly changing the world but we were all living our lives. We were creating the memories we will continue to reminisce over well into our elderly years and we knew it. Now I suppose people are old and our youthful idealism is starting to dim. I’m not sure if I am just hanging onto the past or if having seen just how powerful people actually can be when their vision is united I feel I must keep trying to get back there to steal ideas for the future. Maybe I refuse to grow up and see the world through adult eyes but given that they are the ones that got us into many of the messes the world is currently in I don’t think I’m entirely convinced they will be able to solve all of the problems. There is something so innocent and pure about a child saying “well why don’t you just do x to fix the problem”. Adults always explain the answer away with long convoluted well-worn ‘truths’ but I think the answers are more simple then we want to admit. I think that’s why I don’t want to lose track of my inner child and why I keep trying to push people back towards the days of lore. There was something there if only for a moment that was real and true. So maybe I am a dreamer, or just a party kid at heart, but I think it’s more than just chasing the high of wanting to be reliving memories. I want to be constantly creating new ones, it’s how you make history.

Accruing positive change

Common sense is a tricky thing to find some days, and I think quite wrongly named as it is rarely common. I think what common sense should be called is the key that allows you to access a universal truth that you often miss because it is too close to your eyes. It’s the good old adage about not seeing the forest for the tress. You know there is a wall in front of you but until you have the words to describe it and the image identified you can’t comprehend how to get around it.

I think some people shy away from common sense because the trust almost always comes at a cost: change. As soon as you’ve been told something new and accept it, you must change the way you perceive the world and this thought can be terrifying. It’s how ideas can move mountains and inspire nations. The true may set you free, but the next question is always ‘then what’, and that’s the one that matters most. ‘Then what’ is the truth that blinds. Like looking at anything bright however if we squint at first and then slowly open our eyes we are actually able to perceive the image before us slowly and steadily. This is how we must access our universal truths.

There is of course also the age old debate about whether leaders, the ones who help us find our way to the truth, are born or bread. I for one would like to think they are shaped. Everything in life that you come in contact with shapes you in some way, leaders simply react positivity to the change. If this is in fact true then anyone can become a leader, they simply need to shift the paradigm of their perception. Simple is rarely actually that however, and with every passing day the change required becomes exponentially greater. Luckily, like Newton stated so many years ago, the opposite is also true. The more often you tap into common sense the easier it becomes: the light naturally is less blinding. Consequentially the change required is also smaller and easier to incorporate into your daily life.

Change then is most easily accessed by children but this should come as no surprise. Most people I know can single out a handful of mentors without whom they would not have even seen the door to common sense. Interestingly, most also can list a certain point or two in their life where they were forced to make a difficult choice. Despite the immediate consequences they choose to listen to their common sense and do what they felt was right. The result is often painful at first, akin to the pains of growing up, but the result is someone who they are proud to say they have become.

Although we can look to our children as our future, and the hope of a better time, in the end it is the here and now that is the only thing that can be affected. Each and every one of us must look to ourselves as a person who can actively effect change. The moral of the story here is that every day we are faced with choices that we chose to ignore because doing so is easy. But, if we instead chose to listen to what we know to be right, our common sense, our universal truths, then we would all be on the road to self betterment and positive change. A road that only gets easier after the first step.