For the past few years, I’ve been feeling incredibly stupid for my inability to predict the future based on social media. It seems like, to a degree, the purpose of the platforms. I mean, that’s what the ad buyers and data dealers are looking for, right? A mass gathering of personal information and user content from which to source ideology and behavior patterns and to model current trends. So why can’t I see it?
When I open Twitter, I might as well be spilling out the messy entrails of a tiny blue bird. Perhaps there is an arcane art in reading these omens known only to the mighty thought leaders. Perhaps it’s all just crockery. Either way I don’t get anything from it (except usually disgusted). And yet, I keep coming back. Frequently. Routinely. Superstitiously.
People like to think they’re in control, even when they’re not. Superstitious behaviors are actions that are reinforced through reward or punishment, even though the behavior had no relationship to the outcome. If you always wear your lucky socks, something good will inevitably happen while you’re wearing them, which will reinforce to you their luckiness. If you keep saying the world is ending, eventually you’ll be right.
I like to think of myself as a driver of my own fate, an intelligent and creative individual with on-point executive function whose decisions are meaningful. I’ve written before about being indecisive, and this is why- I’m always concerned about the impacts of my choices. But the fact is those impacts are small, and their very connection to the choices I made are tenuous. Many of the decisions I fret over end up being superstitious. No matter what choices we make, our lives are much more impacted by where we are, when we are, and who we are.
In the big picture, we’re mostly passengers on a banana boat, and it’s hard to understand the forces driving the speedboat that tows us. We are pulled along by current events, worldstates, new ideas, and maybe a few highly influential individuals. It would be a *very* different ride if we were born in the 1400s, or perhaps in a different body. But what can we do to change the direction of our boat? Shouting at the drivers feels useless - they never seem to hear us over the roaring engine and waves.
Voting, individually, is a superstitious experience. Lean one way or the other on the banana boat, and it will have no impact on what way the drivers choose to steer. Sometimes you’ll lean and the direction might happen to shift, but it was never really about your action. While voting is constantly heralded as the most important democratic duty we have, a single vote is garbled by millions of other votes, and then by districting and/or electoral math, and comes out insignificant.
Voting, collectively, matters. If everyone on the banana boat leans one way or the other, it will have an impact on direction. Not as strong of an impact as the drivers, with all their horsepower, but it is one of the few ways to impact the path of the banana boat, for better or worse.
Now that I think about it, I feel like voting in the US is seen as a very personal thing. People vote alone, and they vote in secret. My family members and friends might talk about our thinking or our leanings, but it would feel weird, almost taboo, to show someone a filled in ballot or to directly ask someone about their votes. Why, when voting is all about collective momentum and power, is it considered private?
Maybe the personalization of voting is part of the reason people feel apathetic about it. People feel lukewarm about the candidates they get to choose from, but when you vote for a candidate, it is not actually supposed to be a confession of your love for them nor a tacit approval of everything they’ve said and done. It doesn’t really have to do with you. A vote for a candidate is part of a collective effort to make the best governing decision for our country.
When I think about voting that way, I’m not apathetic. I’m excited. I’m excited to vote for Joe Biden for president in November, not because I’m excited by Joe Biden himself or his policies or his record, but because I’m excited by the direction his presidency could move us toward. I don’t get to pick anyone I want, I get to pick between the options available, and to me, that’s a clear choice.
My one vote might not have a huge impact on its own, but it’s definitely worth more than flicking through social media feeds again. More importantly, my vote isn’t going to be the only vote.
So, vote! Vote in the national election in November! Vote in your local elections! Vote in the poll at the end of this article for next week’s topic! Rock the vote, rock the banana boat!
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