D. None of the Above: Cut it out! Celebrating the misery of others could hurt us, too
By Daniel Dunaief
I’m tired, crabby, angry, annoyed, frustrated, disappointed, appalled and short tempered.
Sleep, as a feature in TBR News Media this week suggests, will cure some of that.
But I’m just so fed up with the nonstop negativity in the country. Half the country not only wants to win, but seems thrilled with the prospect that the other half will lose. The worse the losers feel, the happier they are.
We’ve become a society of stomping toddlers, eager to crush the careful creations and ideas of those we oppose under our feet. Cut it out! This isn’t helping.
Okay, let’s take a step back from politicians and discuss us, you know, John and Joan Q. Public.
We are generally sleep deprived, according to statistics and people who pinch themselves not out of sheer joy but out of the necessity of staying awake each day.
More than one out of two people in the cars next to us may not only be texting and/or talking on the phone, but is also likely struggling to stay awake. That’s not good for them or for us.
Think about it: when you go to a store for stuff, call a company to send someone to fix your air conditioners in overbearing heat, or need someone to provide a skill set that you don’t possess, you don’t ask a long list of questions to make sure they were on the winning political team or that they believe everything you believe or even that they got enough sleep the previous night.
But, wait, what if the help we need is part of the other political team or, even going outside the realm of politics, is a devoted fan of the Red Sox, believes in red herrings, or is a fan of the color red?
You might privately enjoy the victory of your team or your would-be political leader, but are you really eager for them — you know, the “others” who are a part of our lives — to be miserable?
Their misery could become your misery.
It might tickle you to watch them cry and to ponder the existential threat that the person you support won and the person they supported lost, but you still need them even if you have no use for their political leaders.
If they lose sleep and are worse at their jobs, you might have to wait longer in line, deal with an incorrect bill you have to keep fighting, or suffer through the consequences of getting a meal that contains an allergen you told the waitress you couldn’t eat.
Even if you feel a momentary satisfaction that people who are supporting the wrong candidates lost, you shouldn’t be too eager to push their head in the mud or to throw tomatoes at them. You might need those people and your tomatoes.
What happened to agreeing to disagree, to the art of compromise or even just to listening?
If whichever side loses feels like they still have a seat at the table, an ability to affect policies, an opportunity to help our children learn — is anyone on this campaign talking about education, ever? — and confidence that someone will listen to their ideas, the political and cultural temperature wouldn’t be so high and we the people would sleep and work better.
Yes, the extremes on each side can be absurd and frustrating, but even those people with the most ridiculous signs can be agreeable and helpful outside the context of political ideology.
So, just to recap, we might want to consider this great experiment in democracy as a team effort. We don’t always say and do the right things and we don’t always back the right horses, but, together, we can be greater than any one election or one would-be leader.
Unless we’re ready to live on a farm and eat our own food, educate our children, provide our own energy and entertainment and perform necessary surgeries on ourselves, we need each other. Once we remember that, we might have a better chance of sleeping well at night, which will make us better at our many roles, from parenting, to working, to contributing to our communities.
