What do you do when an election looks more like real life than a sporting event? I enjoy watching sporting events and at the same time scratch my head about why sports feel so good at times . Maybe it is the binary of it all. Someone actually wins conclusively and for brief clean moments I feel filled with endorphins even though I am celebrating a winning game in which physically I had “no skin in”. The next day is back to work and by sundown the body has shed the euphoria and my troubles are still my troubles. This last election outcome took me and my body to a new place. I read and saw similar reactions across the board in media. Instead of the binary high, I felt a deep release way down inside of my body, and a sense of relief so palpable I was closer to tears than a victory dance. Why? I think I sensed rather than knew that people still cared and thought about caring. This hard to explain concept of the Sense of Good was strummed in me like a lovely guitar chord. If politics were a game, which it clearly isn’t, but if it were, I have more than skin in this game, I have my whole body in it. 

When you look at it closely, neither of the two parties particularly won or lost. Later of course the fingernail parings of the pollsters will probably be exploited as usual, but in fact the outcome message seemed to me more thoughtful and leaning towards cooperation and caring. Decisions were made by people in mass that came from a place deeper than a sporting event. Even so I feel ready to work again and help in what way I can to move the momentum of this culture a few more inches toward the collective sense of good. 

Too often the term both/and is used as a cheap and easy way to conflate opposing concepts without having to deal with obvious contradictions. The binary is described as an indulgence rather than a decision. We could say this has been a both/and message coming from the election rather than a binary. I would partially disagree. To me this has been an election that respected millions of binaries creating a new subjective reality that will influence the direction this nation, its cultures, and its citizens. Yes that subjective level contains fortunately mostly ‘both/and’ content, but the day comes when all levels of the gifts of the human species must be brought to bear and a binary called a vote executed. This system called democracy is indeed imperfect, but it is the best we have and there is work to be done. No, democracy is not a sporting event, but when it delivers it delivers a deeper pleasure than any sporting event ever could.