Election Day, A Local Perspective

Election day.  Our long national drama is never-ending.  I have often pondered the current state of our Union and how I might help.  One thing that always dampens my resolve to move forward is information.  Most of my information comes from a national perspective while my personal perspective comes from where I live, work, and have my being—locally.  Neither of these places has anything in common.  There is also the basic truth that if my local perspective were applied nationally things would immediately become much better but the reverse would have the opposite effect.  A case in point is how those that regularly give us our national perspective talk about one another or interact with one another.  They are very rude, say the vilest things about one another, and often are downright uncivilized toward anyone they disagree with.   Now there is not a single neighbor that I have that I don’t disagree with on many issues, how they keep their yard, their dogs, their house, what kind of car they drive, and if, when, or where they worship.  If I acted nationally I would march, protest, say unkind things about them and their choices, maybe riot, maybe damage their property, their reputation and, God forbid, maybe even their physical self.  But there is one local difference, I live in a neighbor(hood).  Hood being the focus of what makes our local perspective work, we are like a band of citizens, grouped together not by our beliefs or politics but by our proximity to one another.  As they often live as I would not I acknowledge that I am the same to them—we are all humans, flawed, but still in the hood.  We are black, white, immigrant, war veterans, religious, old, young, gay, hippies, straights, and good scoundrels everyone.  It is our hood.  The election will have no effect upon our hood but I have the opportunity to dramatically affect the hood.  How?  It is the second greatest commandment (Google it) and one that if applied nationally to our nationhood would solve every problem that plaques our United States.