SUPER TUESDAY is over. Today is Non-Super Wednesday. And regardless of which Presidential candidate gathers more delegates in the primary; regardless of who takes the popular vote; regardless, even, of who (and whose agenda) is ultimately voted into the White House in November and how much changes as a result, one truth remains unaffected: The power to make change resides in each and every one of us, and every day.

The obligation to work at positive changes in our society on a personal and community level ought not, and in reality, cannot be sublimated into or subsumed by one day in a booth with a button. In Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau reminds us of this.

Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.

 —HENRY DAVID THOREAU, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Substitute "human" for "man," and this holds true today. And will always hold true. For our vote is but a symbol of what we hope to see happen in our world. But voting for a winner on American Idol is, in all reality, a more direct expression of a person's will, and has a greater chance of resulting in one's direct wish for a specific outcome.

And the danger in getting too caught up in the symbol of the Vote, rather than focusing upon the underlying essence that gives that symbol meaning—making change and affecting the world around us—is the potential abdication of our social and communal obligations.

A personal story. My adoptive father was a man who would visit a certain denomination of church every Christmas Eve. He did not live by the tenets of this religion, he did not reflect upon the philosophies of that religion, and he did not carry the idols with him—pictorially, mentally or verbally. He did not visit any other time of year, and when the night was over, he forgot the church until the next Christmas Eve, his duty and observance satisfied. Combine this habit of his with the Superbowl, and you end up with how I see much of the Presidential elections and the related voting we do.

The state of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls, but on how you vote everywhere.

—THOREAU'S JOURNALS; PASSAGES READ BY H.G.O. BLAKE BEFORE THE CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY.

We "vote everywhere" not so much by ballot, or by shopping, or even by blogging. For what is the "state of the country," after all? What is a "country," but a collection of communities? And what is a community, but a collection of people? And if those people (us) do nothing but vote one day of the year, shop, blog, and then leave the state of their (our) culture and society and communities in the hands of the elected officials, what have we done? What have we contributed? What have we affected? I cannot speak for anyone else, but I have an idea (one might say "vision," were s/he not worried about being misunderstood) of the world I want to live in. And I do not feel content to check a box or pull a lever or push a button and hope, somehow, that this action brings that world about.

Nor am I content to point my finger at the person sitting in the White House and blame them for all the wrongs that we visit upon ourselves in the form of our actions and non-actions.

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then?

—HENRY DAVID THOREAU, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Mahatma Gandhi told us to be the change in the world that we wanted to see. And of course "be" is both a state of existence, as well as a verb.

In the current political atmosphere, there is much talk of change (at least on the political Left). There is talk of hope. There is talk of progress. And I respond. Because these are also part of my vision for the world, as well.

I am one human, and citizen, who is not content to leave these ideals and goals in the hands of politicians. Every day I want to nurture some hope within myself, and perhaps in someone else, if I can. Every day I hope for positive change, and every day I want to move toward that change. For it is an epic and important work in progress—self and state and nation. And my deepest obligations to my self, my neighbor, my community, my planet, and the future can never be foisted upon government officials far from me—no matter how many people checked a box or pushed a button or pulled a lever in their favor.

Men may talk about measures till all is blue and smells of brimstone, and then go home and sit down and expect their measures to do their duty for them.

 

—THOREAU'S JOURNALS; PASSAGES READ BY H.G.O. BLAKE BEFORE THE CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday—every day, it is up to me to do my best to live in the essence of what my vote can only hope to symbolize.