Never Walked In High Heels

I’m an opinionated woman. I don’t mean to be going for the understatement of the year here or anything, but the fact is I spend a lot of time thinking and even forming my own conclusions. Public transportation is particularly good for this exercise as it allows me to observe, think and refine whenever there is little else to do.

So I was really surprised when during a conversation with a close friend I said, “I actually don’t care” in the middle of the debate. I try to think of everything in my spare time, but when he asked me about a major ethical issue, I just couldn’t be bothered. It wasn’t that I couldn’t come up with an opinion if I thought hard enough—of course I could—I just wasn’t sure that it was worth my effort.

I have a friend who doesn’t know the first thing about politics, several of them actually. Oddly enough, most of them are human aid workers—reviving people who are dying, rescuing people from floods or avalanches, going in where the rest of us barely dare to pray. I don’t consider myself as the same classification as those friends, but it’s interesting. Outside of naming our new President (and possibly our Vice President) they are completely lost in a political conversation. Ask them about some act in Russia, which turn orphans out of orphanages at 15 and they can tell you exactly who passed it, when, and why, as well as subsequent acts which resulted thereof.

I think the reason why they don’t follow politics is that my friends are too busy fixing things that the politicians in armchairs talk about changing as they smoke on cigars and go out to fancy dinners. The human service acts, which my friends undertake are the equivalent of feeding prisoners of war while the rest of us are talking about strategy. We like to believe in America that our vote is actively changing something, but the truth is that it isn’t. It’s like how some people believe that paying taxes is actually charity—there’s nothing charitable about voting. It’s not some humanitarian act. Humanitarian acts don’t come from a government legislator, they come from actively getting up out of your house and encountering the world face to face, which means not being home to watch the cable news shows, and in this way, my friends being clueless about politics isn’t really an issue.

Not everyone can move the middle of Siberia in order to make the world a better place. I realize that of course, and so it is up to those of us who do have time to follow politics and care about it, to ensure that the America my friends come home to when they need a break from saving the world, it is a country they can be proud of & in. This is the place of voting and taxes. It is not however, human aid work.

After this conversation, I put myself to a challenge. If I don’t have an opinion on something, I don’t give one, that’s okay too. My friends and I are passionate people—wanting to see the world change in a huge variety of ways. However, when you care deeply about many things you cannot afford the energy to superficially care about what everyone else thinks of as being important. In my mind some issues are more important than others, and the issues I don’t think are important need to be left to someone who is passionate about those issues because in the end, who knows if there’s anyone else passionate about mine.