A Meaningful Choice

Tomorrow is election day in the United States. I’m a fan of democracy. I wasn’t always – or, at least, I wasn’t always an enthusiastic participant. I grew up in the shadow of Watergate and the Vietnam War and the machinations of politicians seemed like so much phony noise and nonsense. Why encourage them? Also, I didn’t like the argument. People who believed deeply in politics were always arguing and accusing and demanding and marching. Though I was a storyteller, I disliked conflict in my everyday life. I preferred it on the page or screen.

More profoundly, however, was the issue of the vote itself – specifically, my vote. As a young man, I had glimpsed the vastness of the world and what seemed like my own puniness in relation to it. It was a tricky reality to negotiate as a budding writer. Somehow you have to believe that your voice, your story, will be heard above the din of human discourse, will rise from the slush pile, will be noticed on the crowded bookshelf. Did I really need one more reminder of the odds against which I was betting, to picture my single ballot awash in a sea of ballots, changing nothing, meaning nothing? I did not.

I voted in a presidential election for the first time in 1992. I’d heard one of the candidates say something about “family values” and thought, “That’s bunk.” Now, like it or not, I was in the conversation, and voting seemed like the best and easiest way to participate. Also, I’d just gotten married. That was a choice I’d have made again and again. It was pretty hard to argue that my choice to marry my wife didn’t matter, was meaningless, would affect nothing.

Plus, I was writing every morning. Every time I chose a word that fit as effortlessly as a puzzle piece into a sentence, every time I experienced that gratifying sense of completion at the end of a sentence, I felt the necessity and resonance of my choices within myself. I didn’t know where my writing would take me any more than I could know what difference my single vote would make, but I knew how it felt to think it didn’t matter, that I didn’t matter, that nothing mattered. In this way, regardless of the candidate, I was always voting for myself.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com