I try to be a part of the whole.
It’s important to include oneself in the process.
A responsibility, even, to participate.
Each time, though, I wonder if the value holds true.
From each issue put before me I seek the truth.
From the people who seek my favor and belief in them I search for sincerity.
But each time there nags the feeling that neither truth nor sincerity are to be found, this time around.
The noise grows louder as the moment of civic climax approaches.
The earnest imploring and pleading, the messaging more demanding of attention.
Every turn of the calendar page brings a new day of opinions, advocacies, denials, some new critical judgments and the old familiar falsehoods.
Deja vù washes over us like the seaon’s leaves cover the ground.
Haven’t we talked about, fought about, thought about these topics before?
Are we still looking for the answers?
Or are we simply discovering new ways to avoid finding them?
Democracy we hold dear in word but in practice has it run its course?
Has its time come to evolve, shed old skins, refresh and renew?
Is this the only hope of its survival?
Would a new version still carry the baggage of the old?
Despite the struggle reality dictates the contrary choices are few and unappealing.
But, it’s not perfection that matters when speaking of democracy.
What matters is reaching for it, striving for it, experimenting with it.
This is where the most valuable lessons are to be learned.