According to Meyers-Briggs personality testing over the years, I’m a classic “INFP“. Those who know me well would probably agree that these traits of INFP personalities fit me all TOO well:
- INFPs do not like conflict, and go to great lengths to avoid it.
- INFPs are flexible and laid-back, until one of their values is violated. In the face of their value system being threatened, INFPs can become aggressive defenders, fighting passionately for their cause.
- When it comes to the mundane details of life maintenance, INFPs are typically completely unaware of such things. They might go for long periods without noticing a stain on the carpet, but carefully and meticulously brush a speck of dust off of their project booklet.
- INFPs are usually talented writers. They may be awkward and uncomfortable with expressing themselves verbally, but have a wonderful ability to define and express what they’re feeling on paper. INFPs also appear frequently in social service professions, such as counseling or teaching.
I stay pretty busy on a day-to-day basis (as a teacher!) and I really don’t go out of my way to find more things to do. While I AM (at least peripherally) aware of the multiple stains on the carpet, over the last couple of months I’ve had to classify more things as “mundane” in order to find time, make time and forfeit time (to sleep…) to become more involved, politically, than I’ve ever been in my life.
I’ve found I simply CAN’T be “laid-back and flexible” when my “values” are being “violated” and so I’ve taken this (blogging) and many, many other opportunities to voice my concerns — by writing. I’ve tried to avoid conflict (i.e. I haven’t initiated any “letters to the editor”) but I’ve also found that I can’t keep silent (so I’ve posted numerous comments to OTHER people’s “letters to the editor”).
I haven’t “attacked” people for their different views. Lord knows, there’s been enough attacking in this political campaign! When I’ve (often) disagreed with what they’ve written, I simply try to get them to look beyond the headline or the sound bite or the piece of literature that’s arrived in their mailbox to get the “rest of the story.”
No, I’m not bucking for Paul Harvey’s job and no, I really don’t want to become the blogging equivalent of “Joe the Plumber,” suddenly cast in the spotlight of national attention. But seriously folks, this whole thing is making me crazy (a friend said that a case of Red Bull might have been a good birthday present for me, given the hours I’ve been keeping) and I am very aware of the fact that this election is a time-limited situation. I’ll sleep again — and maybe even run the vacuum cleaner — after I know that I’ve done what I CAN do, within my self-regulated parameters — to make some small difference in the way that people think.
Up until recently, “politics” was ranked up there with the “mundane details of life maintenance.” In the 2000 election, I wasn’t happy about the prospect of having a political “dynasty” (Bush, Part 2), but probably due to being raised by two parents who always voted Republican, I had a basic mistrust of Democrats (Gore). Not liking either candidate — but not feeling strongly enough to try to support one to block the election of the other — I voted for Nader.
In 2004, still not supporting the “political dynasty” stuff and not being happy with the way Bush was handling his job, I voted for Kerry, even though I didn’t spend much time trying to learn about him. When the election turned out the way it did, however, especially since there were allegations that the election had been “stolen,” I roused myself up enough to post on the Sorry Everybody website. If you’re not familiar with this site or the sentiment behind it, people posted a picture of themselves holding a note that said something like, “Sorry, everybody — 49% of us really tried.” Being a political neophyte making my first small public social protest, I found it interesting when people from other countries started to post their “apology accepted” pictures. That’s when I first realized how MUCH America’s elections impact the rest of the world, and that was a small, but significant epiphany….
I first heard about Barack Obama from a co-worker well over a year ago. She seemed excited about the prospect of him being president, but I was neutral about all of it. I was glad to know that the Bush dynasty was finally coming to an end, I knew that Hillary (another “political dynasty”person!) was running in the primaries against the guy my co-worker liked, but I still wasn’t particularly involved or interested.
I can’t pinpoint the moment that things started to change — when I started to sit up and take serious notice. I was vaguely aware of the presidential primaries, but since I don’t vote in the primaries, it didn’t concern me too much. I’d heard some things (from family members) about McCain that didn’t make him my preferred candidate, but like many Americans, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the whole concept of someone named Barack Obama actually running for president….
The Democratic National Convention (August 25-28) marked my first official week back at school, Palin was announced as McCain’s VP on August 29, and the Republican National Convention (September 1-4) coincided with the first full week of classes. You can guess where my priorities were, so whatever attention I paid to anything outside of school was minimal, at best.
I didn’t watch Palin’s first speech at the RNC on September 3rd. I don’t even remember the first time I saw her on TV, but at some point I quipped that we had Mad Magazine characters running for our highest offices in government. I also joked that the upcoming election kind of sounded like the beginning of a bad joke: “An old man, a moose-hunting woman and a black guy go into a bar…” Still detached from it all, I was relieved to see that Nader was running for president. Again.
So where did it start, this obsession with all things political? It was sometime after September 3rd, but well before October 2nd, when I made my first blog post on politics. I still can’t determine the exact “when” regarding my involvement, but at some point I knew, with absolute clarity, that this was going to be the most important and significant election in my lifetime. And I knew that I damned well better start paying attention.
To put this self-revelation moment into context, there are several key things that make me “tick” and define who I am. Even though I was raised in a small town and was active in my local (Methodist) church, I’ve always looked for the broader meanings in life, largely due to personal experiences. When I was 15, an event so profound and so personally-significant changed the way that I viewed life. I’ve written about it here. From this time on, I realized that I no longer had a “choice” regarding whether or not to “believe” in God because (echoing Carl Jung), you don’t have to “believe” (which implies a choice to not believe) when you know.
This is not a statement of spiritual “pride,” but instead it’s an acknowledgment that if faith and spirituality are important to you, if you believe that Creation is an ongoing process, if you believe that our Creator didn’t stop talking after religious texts were written, then there’s much to be gained by making it a personal quest to understand life and our place in it. Some people rely on “spiritual leaders,” but for many reasons that I’ve written about elsewhere, I’m not willing to be “led.” As a result, I’ve always been willing to take responsibility to examine our relationship with our Creator from all sides and from every possible viewpoint. It’s led me down some strange roads, but I’ve always come back “home” again (though my “travel pictures” and “souvenirs” have certainly enhanced my internal sense of “home decor” and my external sense of “architecture” has also changed).
I’d had experiences before the “Big One” that helped to develop my broad, intensely curious view of life, and I continue to have experiences that serve to reinforce my core beliefs and “knowings.” My primary path is Christianity, but over the years it’s become a very eclectic path that allows me to acknowledge that there may be many pathways to God.
During the last ten years, I’ve written a great deal about religion and spirituality. I haven’t gone out of my way to make these writings public, but through the wonders of the Internet and the power of search engines, I have “met” many, many fellow “travelers” and “kindred spirits” who have enriched my life. While some of their “knowings” do not always resonate with some of my “knowings,” I am respectful of their personal experiences, just as they have been respectful of mine. The common ground that we share has served to strengthen all of us.
Over the last seventeen years, in two different schools, I’ve had the opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge about other people and cultures because the “world” has come to my classroom. From 1990 through 2000 while passionately tracing my family history, I gained not only skills in research but a solid respect for the need of documented proof. As the saying goes, “Genealogy without documentation is mythology.”
And so with this background of eclectic spirituality, a familiarity with — and delight in — the interactions I’ve had with those of other cultures and ethnic groups, and research skills that were honed while trying to ferret out truth about matters pertaining to my personal history, here I am.
I’ve always been a “middle of the road-er,” and as a result I’ve been hit by traffic coming in BOTH directions during the last several weeks. Someone just shared a great quote: “America is like an eagle; it needs both a left wing and a right wing to fly.” I absolutely relate to this and I’m therefore VERY concerned about the potential lack of balance our government may soon have.
But THAT said, core values HAVE been “violated” during this election season. Palin’s ultra conservative Christian views have prompted me to respond in numerous venues including on this blog (“Separation of Church and State and Thoughts on the Upcoming Election”, “The ‘F’ Word and the Collision of Religion and Politics” and others), the intolerance and hate- and fear-filled messages I’ve seen and heard have been incredibly distressing and have led to more responses (“United We Stand?” and others posted here) and the fact that people are BELIEVING the “truth” without discovering the full story behind it have led to posts like this one (excerpted) that I made in a local paper in response to someone who wrote that he “feared for the future of the United States”:
I think that many of us share your concerns. Yesterday my mom, a registered Republican, received 5 different pieces of literature that brought up many of the points you mentioned. Based on what I’ve learned, however, I’d like to try to clarify a few things.
Over the years, Obama has rejected legislation that has included language that would make ALL abortions (regardless of the reason) a crime, or language that would make doctors who perform abortions (regardless of the reason) felons or language that might protect a mother’s life, but not her health. http://www.ontheissues.org/Social/Barack_Obama_Abortion.htm
Obama’s vote against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act is just one of many issues that are being misrepresented. At the time the Born Alive Infant Protection Act was presented, there was already a law in Illinois that protected “born alive” babies, even if they’d been born alive during an abortion. (Sidenote: I was over the word limit for this response and had to cut out info regarding a new bill that was being presented in Illinois that changed the wording of the “Born Alive” Act, which led to Obama’s “no” vote.) As he says, “For people to suggest that I and the Illinois medical society…were somehow in favor of withholding life saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies commonsense and it defies imagination and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive and it’s an example of the kind of politics that we have to get beyond. It’s one thing for people to disagree with me about the issue of choice, it’s another thing for people to out and out misrepresent my positions repeatedly, even after they know that they’re wrong. And that’s what’s been happening.”
So yes, he’s voted against legislation that has been presented due to other things that have been included in the bills, but he fully SUPPORTS life saving support for infants born alive!
And while he supports “choice,” he says he believes that states can restrict certain types of abortions as long as they also protect the health of the mother.
On the other side, Gov. Palin believes that ALL abortions — regardless of the reason (including pregnancies resulting from rape, incest, etc) — should be banned. This is a very extreme view and not one that many Americans could comfortably support.
You also wrote, “We were once the most admired nation on earth, but now we are greatly despised.” On that I agree with you, too.
The people of the world are paying a LOT of attention to this presidential election and overwhelmingly they are supporting Obama. http://www.iftheworldcouldvote.com/results
Why is this?
What we do in this country has an INCREDIBLE impact on every other country in the world. If our economy is in crisis, it effects everyone else. If we engage in war somewhere, our allies have to make decisions about their level of involvement.
Sen. Obama has put together a campaign that has united people instead of separating them. His campaign has restored their confidence in our country and the people of the world are watching and hoping that they can start to feel confident about us again.
In a speech he gave in Berlin last summer, Obama said the following (excerpted):
“Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.
I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.
But I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived – at great cost and great sacrifice – to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world. What has always united us – what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America’s shores – is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.” The full transcript of this speech may be found here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/24/obama-in-berlin-video-of_n_114771.html
As hate-filled and divisive as the Republican campaign has been — along with my serious concerns about Palin — I simply can’t support McCain in 2008. (I rather liked him in 2000, but many of his views have changed — radically — since then.) At this point in our country’s history, I feel that Obama is our best choice. So does my mom–the registered Republican who will be voting Democratic for the first time in her life.
All that any of us can do is to be true to ourselves. But we owe it to our country — and to the people who come after us — to again reflect on the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson:
“Whenever the people are well informed,
they can be trusted with their own government.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
I’ve done all I can do to be as “informed” as possible and to “aggressively defend” the things that are so very important to me. May (EVERYONE’S) God protect — and forgive — us all as we vote on November 4th.
