Operating under the influence

A mid-term election is in process as I write. I live in the United States where I am not required by law to vote. We Americans aren’t big on being told what to do by our government. More accurately, most of us like to cherry pick what we do and don’t want our representatives to enforce, based on our ideologies. I’m not going to dive all the way down that rabbit hole; you know what I mean.  

I am white, middle class, and I was born after the right to vote had been secured for women of my ilk. I have never been convicted of a felony, nor do I have a disability. I have a lot of professional autonomy, and my employer also provides an election day benefit of two hours’ paid leave, to make sure I am able to carry out my civic duty. I live in a small town and can easily walk to my polling location. By easily I mean that if you stood at the entrance to the voting site, I could see you waving at me from my backyard. When I turned up to cast my ballot, I was ushered straight through with zero waiting. For me, exercising the right to vote is remarkably simple.

Outside of never committing a serious crime, the ease with which I am able to participate in an election has little to do with anything I have actively worked to achieve, rather it is a product of fortunate circumstances and people who came before me. The same is largely true of the fact that I don’t live in an outright autocracy.  I didn’t choose to be an American. I was born here, as were my parents, their parents, and their parents before them.  Thus, for me (and I dare say for many like me) voting is not just a right but an unearned advantage also known as a privilege. I try to not take that for granted.

Still, I am disillusioned. Whether or not they were ever tasty for everyone, the fruits of our founding fathers’ labor are in a state of decay. The implements used for harvesting new crops of government officials are damaged, our elections are plagued by pests from beyond our borders, and our people have separated themselves into political monocultures of us and them. Without extraordinary change, I’m not sure we can save this farm.

Uff da. I get it. I don’t know whether I’ve got the energy either. Any change requires effort, and effort requires at least a little bit of heart, and heart means believing, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something we do might make a damn difference. The word crisis is used so often these days that it no longer garners much attention, so I am reluctant to go there. But, it sure feels like we’re in a collective calamity. Everyone is sick and tired. What a sad state to share in common.

So, what now?

Earlier this week, my inner coach was ready to throw in the towel. I took a jaunty philosophical journey that started with wondering what happened to basic human decency. Are we all so broken that we are beyond repair? After some soul searching, I ended up at another question: How do we cure each other?

You want to know what bubbled up for me as an answer? Soup. I’m not kidding!

There is so much we can’t do. But, soup? We know soup! What we’re up against here is emotional influenza. People need relief. Imagine what could happen if we dispensed a remedy that has worked across generations, to heal the sick and comfort the downhearted.

Yes, we might deliver a bona fide bowl of nourishment to folks who are dealing with acute situations. But, what got me off the mat was the idea of achieving similar results by operating under the influence of soup.

In my head, it works like this: We begin from the premise that each one of us is somewhere on the spectrum of sickness: a splitting headache, an aching heart, wracked with anxiety, deliriously fatigued. Knowing this, we are hopefully less likely to turn up with the offer of an attitude makeover. We resist insisting that they’ve been watching too much of the wrong kind of television. Now is not the time to let loose about diminished levels of intelligence while holding up our own opinions as evidence of superior thinking.

When people are hurting, we drop our political cudgels. We check in to see if they are interested in talking. We ask where they feel the most pain. We remember the last time we felt that bad, and how reassuring it was when someone reached out to us. That’s called empathy. Then, we dig up a recipe, maybe one handed down to us from our parents, or their parents, or the ones before them, and we get busy making soup.

~Elizabeth

p.s. Feel free to share your favorite soup recipe in the comments. I have one I’ll send around some day soon.