The Political Season at Hand
Most People Don't Vote, But Most Complain
This political season I took it upon myself to become a better citizen. How? By engaging the candidates running for political office and inviting them to sit down for a cordial natured podcast conversation about who they are and what they hope to achieve.
Having only dabbled in podcast production very little in the past several years, I knew from the onset I had a present and significant learning curve to conquer. And like many others engaged in the voting process, I too am too busy with more than I’d like to be to realistically be adding more to my already full plate.
I am just another one of the millions of parents hustling to make ends meet, help get our kids ready and taken to school, repairing a roof from a broken limb that went through it because roofers around here are too busy to take care of it within the next several months so I’m having to spend my Saturdays doing it myself, helping a friend rebuild their backyard fence later this week so they can get their house on the market to sell, helping my own real estate clients find and sell their homes as my family and I pursue returning to Korea to continue working with our humanitarian team there.
Why not develop a podcast?
Reason is, I have to. This is my way, one way, of engaging society. Engaging my area(s). And even when we do return to Korea, I’ll be able to keep this going considering it is technology reliant and Korea has some of the best internet services in the world as well as very interesting people to podcast with. (More on that at a later time.)
But anyway, I digress.
It is our duty, ENTIRELY self-motivated by the way, to be involved citizens. We cannot be unengaged and expect things to run anywhere close to how we say they should be running. There are many ways to be engaged as a citizen and most of these ways are ENTIRELY separate from online activities.
Real conversations happen in-person. Real connections happen, in-person.
What I actually mean by “real” is, sustainable and impactful. Interactions happen all the time online. But really, how “real” would you call them? How “connected” are really to someone online?
Real happens in-person because we are made to interact, literally. Tangibly. In person-ly. And if the Covid era didn’t reveal anything else, it certainly revealed our need as humans for real human interaction and communication and connection. Online life is a cheap supplement but not a sustainable alternative for realness.
All this to say, we cannot engage our representatives and candidates applying to be our representatives effectively solely online. They must be met in person, and talked with in person.
This is my aim for this political season. To invite all local candidates running for public office in my areas for a sit down conversation. Only about half of them accepted the invitation, and that’s okay. Because I know I won’t be voting for anyone running for local office I do not meet, so at least half of the list has been weeded out (for me).
But when I complain about my elected representatives, at least I can with some skin in the game.
Listen in to these several podcast conversations with those running here in West Tennessee and go start your own podcast while you’re at it.
