theatrical_muse - Talk about politics
I seem to be doing an awful lot of that lately. Fortunately, I've gotten very good at it or I wouldn't be allowed to do it anymore.
It's funny, when I was young, politics meant very little to me. I grew up among the high society elite of Metropolis - I had a coming out party and everything - and was raised within my father's ever-growing yet bizarrely exclusive circle of fellow lawyers and corrupt politicians. From an early age, I learned to believe in that all-encompassing power of money and influence rather than the vote. I'd read that decisions are made by those who show up, but in my experience, those who bothered to show up were routinely and systematically ignored. During my summer as an intern for The Daily Planet, I watched dumbfounded as every story of radical importance was buried while every piece of idle speculation rose quickly to the top.
So I didn't much care for politics. Not until I became a mother. Suddenly things start to matter more - the future is important, what becomes of the world actually means something because our children will be left living in it.
For the first few years of our marriage, Jonathan and I were known as "the reclusive Kents." That changed when Clark came into our lives. I started to become very involved, in various charities, social programs, and town meetings. It was astonishing to me how much I began to care and, even moreso, how much I began to believe. For so long I had felt bitter and hopeless (helpless even) about the state of the world, utterly pessimistic about our ability to change it. Then all at once, I took an active role in community-building and chose to be guided by hope and faith rather than the grim alternative.
Now it seems I make a living out of that hope and faith. I love every mind-numbingly chaotic moment of what I do, though the problem with politics is that, as German thinker Max Weber once said, "change comes in excruciating increments." Rarely do you have the opportunity to see the lasting results of your hard work, and it leaves you with the empty dissatiscation of not knowing, but also with much room to hope your efforts are fruitful.
I believe in the American political system, despite its flaws, because at the end of the day - what choice do we have?
It's funny, when I was young, politics meant very little to me. I grew up among the high society elite of Metropolis - I had a coming out party and everything - and was raised within my father's ever-growing yet bizarrely exclusive circle of fellow lawyers and corrupt politicians. From an early age, I learned to believe in that all-encompassing power of money and influence rather than the vote. I'd read that decisions are made by those who show up, but in my experience, those who bothered to show up were routinely and systematically ignored. During my summer as an intern for The Daily Planet, I watched dumbfounded as every story of radical importance was buried while every piece of idle speculation rose quickly to the top.
So I didn't much care for politics. Not until I became a mother. Suddenly things start to matter more - the future is important, what becomes of the world actually means something because our children will be left living in it.
For the first few years of our marriage, Jonathan and I were known as "the reclusive Kents." That changed when Clark came into our lives. I started to become very involved, in various charities, social programs, and town meetings. It was astonishing to me how much I began to care and, even moreso, how much I began to believe. For so long I had felt bitter and hopeless (helpless even) about the state of the world, utterly pessimistic about our ability to change it. Then all at once, I took an active role in community-building and chose to be guided by hope and faith rather than the grim alternative.
Now it seems I make a living out of that hope and faith. I love every mind-numbingly chaotic moment of what I do, though the problem with politics is that, as German thinker Max Weber once said, "change comes in excruciating increments." Rarely do you have the opportunity to see the lasting results of your hard work, and it leaves you with the empty dissatiscation of not knowing, but also with much room to hope your efforts are fruitful.
I believe in the American political system, despite its flaws, because at the end of the day - what choice do we have?