On storms and politics

Wrote this during the last election cycle — still seems quite relevant.

Two things have happened this week that have reinforced my conclusion that although we have to do practical stuff to help others (eg, I took Zia the foster kitten to the vet yesterday, which might have saved her life), lasting, far-reaching change has to come from within. Like I was saying in my last article.

An adventure in canvassing

Those of you in the US may have noticed that we are in election season. Now, I want to say before I go any further that generally I’m with Nagarjuna when he prayed never to reborn as a politician. However, I do think there is a choice in this election that might make a difference to large sections of the population. I voted yesterday for the person I think will muck things up less and I actually do hope he wins. I became an American citizen in July, and I’ve long thought that exercising my right to vote is a karmic way to make sure I keep my freedom to vote in the future (and gives me the excuse to complain when politicians annoy me.) But that’s me. I have friends who entirely disagree with my version of who should win this election, or who think that voting for any politician is an exercise in futility, and these are perfectly fine and kind people; which just goes to show how everything depends on our own mind.

The only time I’ve ever been politically active was, aged 13 in Britain, when I saw a party political broadcast by Jeremy Thorpe of the Liberal Party and decided on the spot to join the Young Liberals. This basically meant wearing a nerdy badge and going to a few discos. I don’t believe I made the slightest jot of difference to anything, but I did meet some boys.

Still, the other day I was chilling on my sofa when the phone rang and someone asked me: “Are you voting for so and so?” “Yes.” “Would you like to volunteer to help the campaign?” 

I have never hitherto had the slightest interest in volunteering to help the campaign, and I am not one of those people who tries everything once, but for some reason the word “Yes” came out of my mouth again. Before I could swallow it, I found myself committed to a time and place.

Last Sunday at 1pm, therefore, I found myself driving to a rather nice house on the water and meeting a bunch of rather nice people, who are passionate about this thing. I had read that the well-organized campaign knew everything about registered voters and tried to match canvassers up with their own type of demographic, so as I drove off alone in my car with my clipboard and all my leaflets I called my mum to tell her that with my English accent I’d soon be knocking on some posh doors in that neighborhood. Instead, I found my directions taking me east of the railway tracks.

Equipped with only my sticker, I knocked on 41 doors that afternoon – half the people were out (thankfully) and the other half were African American. Florida gets called the zebra state for good (bad) reason – the strip of land by the water is white, and the strip of land behind it is black, and don’t get me started on how weird that is. In any event, I had an interesting afternoon and a total of 15 conversations, being invited in a couple of times, and persuading perhaps a total of four whole people to go early to the voting booth, but more likely I was preaching to the choir and those four would have gone anyway.

That took four concerted hours!! And really, if I’m to be honest, it accomplished very little, if anything. (I did have fun though.) I am not criticizing Get Out the Vote, in fact it may be necessary and I admired the motivation of the organizers I met (who now of course want me to come back as apparently 15 conversations is some sort of first-time record, tho’ no doubt they say that to everyone.) But what struck me was how labor-intensive and in fact potentially frustrating it is to try and talk people into things they are not interested in. It doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. It just shows me how slow change will be if that is all we do to change things.

Atisha says that we cannot tame the minds of others until we have tamed our own mind. And I think that if everyone put four concerted hours into developing compassion and wisdom each day, we’d very quickly tame our own minds, and could help and encourage others in quite exceptional ways.

I actually heard these words coming out of my mouth while out canvassing, “Let’s win this thing!” I was surprised at myself, until I realized that I wasn’t really talking about the election.

(Hey, I just had some scary trick or treaters come to my door and had to bribe them to go away with Reeses Peanut Butter Cups… it sort of reminded me of Sunday, only no one gave me any chocolate… Happy Halloween Everyone!)

Hurricane Sandy

Sandy. An innocuous name for a killer storm. The inescapable violence of the out-of-control wind and rain in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Haiti and so on reminds me that all too often we have little to no control over the external world. NYC, a major world city with extraordinary modern infrastructure, was still powerless in many ways when the four elements became unbalanced. Many people had the karma in this storm to stay cosy and warm inside, power on, stocked up, just hearing the howling wind without being adversely affected by it on this occasion. Quite a lot of others, however, did not. I think of that policeman who took his family to safety in the attic and returned to the basement, only to drown. He did not expect that when he woke up in the morning. Nor did that woman expect to tread on a live wire and be electrocuted to death. We never know when it is our turn – we always think tragedy is something that happens to others, until it happens to us. Just one or two days, but so much damage. We need to gain more control over our lives, and quickly.