What happened that I tackled politics?  This is the third of a set of posts about my life and how PeopleCount came to be. In two other posts, I narrated about my background that led me to take courses from Landmark Worldwide, and then about the next 24 years of marriage, child-raising and a return to Landmark. In this one, I’ll tell you more about 2011 and what led me to tackling politics.

2011 – A new look at life in the Landmark Wisdom Course

In the Wisdom Course, one takes a brand new look at life. It’s not a superior view, but it’s not a normal view. What’s a person? A being with a personality, attributes, a body, strengths and weaknesses, a family, a name, a home and a culture, a job. What else?A sense of humor? Interests and concerns? Thinking we are one of these kinds of beings shapes our view of what’s possible.

What would life look like if we view a person as a network of conversations? This is the premise of The Wisdom Course. It covers a lot of wonderful things and many new views of life. One creates a kind of biography and diagrams and collages various aspects of life. There are books to read and homework to do between the 6 weekends over the course of ten months.

Politics mattered, I had not chosen to be resigned

I don’t remember how it happened, but toward the end of the first weekend I realized that I deeply, deeply loved people. Beneath my childhood background of loneliness and rejection, I felt connected and cared deeply about humanity.

Shortly afterward, while doing some homework, I realized I was resigned about politics. I thought back over the years of Bush’s failed presidency. I had agonized over his stupid decisions. It had been obvious that we shouldn’t go to war with Iraq. And I remember the day when we heard he had dismissed the Iraqi army. My wife was in disbelief, chaos was sure to ensue. And it did. Thousands of people were killed, hundreds of thousands injured, millions of lives were destroyed as they were ejected from their communities. And the US assumed two trillion more dollars of debt because Bush was an idiot, his neo-cons were arrogant jerks, and the American people had no effective way of objecting. In the wake of that, I had become resigned.

I tackled politics

Politics mattered hugely. I saw that my resignation kept me from participating. Resignation was an adaptation that made me powerless. It helped keep the status quo in place. I gave it up.

I tried to get involved with politics. I read more. I considered getting involved with some groups, but their meeting agendas looked dull. I wanted to express my opinions and have them matter in our decision making. I wanted to make a difference, not work on a cause for many, many months slowly. I searched for a way to make a difference on-line, but found nothing except that I could write my representative and senators.

Frustration communicating with politicians

I wrote them a few times. Each time I’d get a return message a week later about the same subject, but they didn’t return my message so I didn’t know if they had actually answered it. And because I had typed my message into their website, I had no copy of it. It was frustrating.

And in one of the messages my senator told me that the people didn’t want what I wanted. How did she know? I searched online and the polls about it seemed pretty close. But there were no polls just for my state. How did she know?

Was participating in politics worthwhile?

After a couple of months, I took a break. Was it even worth it to be involved in politics? Even if we could have a government we loved, would it be worth it?

I’ll continue this in the next post where I began to look for a solution.