A few months back I got on a plane wearing my Run Kevin Run jacket. Donning my headphones and pulling out my iPad I was settling in to watch some forgettable movie to pass the time… when the guy next to me turned out to be one of THOSE people. You know the ones, the TALKERS, the passenger who feels because we are sitting next to each other we somehow have to be friends. I’m friendly to a point but I’m not looking to delve into deep philosophical conversations with somebody… particularly if I’m going to be trapped next to them for several hours at 37,000 feet.
But this guy didn’t take the social cue hint of my aforementioned donned headphones. He just kept talking. He was a sales guy, or maybe just a schmoozer in general. I could tell because he used the techniques I’m well versed in having completed a morning class in power speaking from the dubiously accredited Vandye J. Forrester III. Spotting my jacket, he said to me, “Are you a runner or a politician?”
It took me I admit longer than it should have that he was referring to my “Run Kevin Run” moniker. I can see why he made the leap and why when looking to strike up a conversation it doesn’t lend itself to a simple “Yes” or “No” response. It requires an acknowledgment of the alternative but provides a pathway to discuss the real.
For a brief moment however I considered saying I was a politician. But I suspected he would want to talk politics, the same way whenever I disclose I was in healthcare in the UK people want to go into excruciating details about Obamacare and the current state of healthcare in the US.
The meandering and poorly plotted point of all this is that today is Election Day. We only truly lose today if we don’t vote. It has been a dishearteningly acrimonious campaign for the Presidency of the United States. I still think it will break away from insanity and brinksmanship, of isolationism and overt exclusionary arrogance, but I do not think it will be the repudiation of hate that the nation and world needs. Everyone, no matter where they fall on the political spectrum, is exhaustedly sighing today. And the outcome will sadly not be the end of the rifts. I am bummed about this in ways I cannot express. I want to believe in a better tomorrow and I do believe in We the People… but I do worry about time. The clock is running. It’s always running. So we should be too.
Run out and vote if you haven’t already. We only truly lose if we fail to act, if we fail to choose the world we want to be.
