# break out of frames
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</IfModule>In my senior year of high school, due to an oversight by the guidance counselor, I ended up choosing a higher math class instead of taking civics. Hated math, quit the homework, ended up with a D in the final, and saw my class standing drop from 18 to 26 – missing the highest honors by just a few points. It wasn’t until the last week of school that somebody told me I didn’t even need that math class to get accepted into college.
Nothing makes my blood hit boil faster than being told I should have done something differently. Oh, except, maybe, being told that I should have done differently because my actions will have had a negative effect on outcomes, whether mine or those of another.
Since birth, I have been a creative. This means that, without knowing whence the impulse originates, I have been moved to make something – whether story, song, or visual image – and that, daily. Sometimes hourly.
Creatives don’t take kindly to being assessed for either their inherent value or the value of that which they are producing. During the creative process, there is no conscious attempt to meet any external standard. Praise is always thrilling, but that comes after the process has come to a close, and has no direct cause/effect relationship to the process itself.
Deadlines are the bane of the creative. We use time according to the nature of what is being made. If external deadlines are imposed, total control over the outcome is interrupted, and the quality of the end product correlates directly.
However, even in the life of a creative there are processes that take a line of reasoning, instead. Rather than make something, we are sometimes called upon to draw conclusions about events or people, taking any action where deemed appropriate.
Major decisions, regarded as important both by self and others, this creative makes with very great deliberation. Weighing multiple factors, I seek out as much information/data as can be obtained. Once I determine that I have sufficient data, I draw my conclusion and then I act.
Now, such data to me might be factual, or it might be impression-based. It might be intuitive, knowing no linear path, or historically correlated. I suspect that what is required of the brain during the creative process is brought to bear in this reasoning, but how or where or wherefore I could not say.
What is key: I determine that I have sufficient data at the moment when I see my conclusion in sight.
With regard to the recent Presidential election, I can safely say that I spent hours of days over a period of many months gathering data, and then deciding which factors played a role in what I determined independently to be the priorities.
The wild card factor played a significant part in my readiness to meet its deadline.
When that wild card played, I came upon a vital collection of data within a time frame that had a rather sudden death effect on my final decision. Up until that point, I had gathered a wealth of impressions, and some facts; but, my nagging intuition kept informing the process, suggesting conclusion. This vital collection of data was historically relevant in nature; once I entered it into the equation, my entire body released all inner tensions. I knew that I had reached conclusion.
At that point, my vote was ready to be cast.
I chose a third party candidate, one occupying the outermost fringe of the landscape.
Post election, the uproar about those of us who chose to do so was almost violent. An entire army of party driven players since declared, some using allegedly mathematical calculation, that we who chose a third were the single, collective entity which decided the outcome of the election. And said party, convinced in their own minds that said outcome was absolutely vital to the survival of the species, deigned to pronounce the most condescending of judgments upon us.
No challenge to either the reasoning or the relative value of any voter’s decision is relevant, here. By applying a tiny percentage of votes not cast for one candidate to a total outcome, and discounting the massive percentage which weighted the lion’s share for the other candidate, those who do so only make themselves out to be Draconian imperialists, runt Napoleons pretending to fight Goliath with a jelly bean.
Being reactionary serves no one. Indulging in melodrama inhibits constructive solution. The third party may have wielded a mighty little exponent; but, each majority on either side of the equation still bears the responsibility of solving for x.
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© Ruth Ann Scanzillo 11/10/16 All rights those of the author, whose name appears above this line. Thank you for your respect. I Voted. Pardon Julian Assange.
littlebarefeetblog.com
littlebarefeetblog 
Crikey – Trump scares me and I’m not even American! Its hard to say much about the situation till the dust settles, I sure hope he’s not the maniac her appears to be at the moment, but its not looking good – I think the media is having a bit of fun tho 😉
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And, the comedy shows are wallowing like bees on their backs in the baked potatoes. Field Day 101! But, gravely: an entire faction of Americans is in deep grief, principally: women; Muslims; LGBT; even some African Americans. Interestingly, Latinos are split…more on that, later. But, I must add: people are being reactionary, melodramatic (yes; who ever thought RAS would be in a position to accuse anybody e.l.s.e.?!), and highly demonstrative; on the first two points, they are only hurting their cause. On the final, they are effectively protesting their loss – HRC did win the popular vote, which only exposes the double-edged sword of the electoral college. I had a friend who was sure the electoral college would prevent a Trump win; ironic that it actually sealed his victory.
Personally, I think that this will all prove to be The Education of Mr. Trump, and I actually feel an element of hopeful anticipation. Love the unknown – like a mystery novel! He’ll be brought so close to the needs of those he maligned in his campaign speeches, they will be impossible to ignore. As for the fears of the HRC supporters, the strides both women and LGBTs have made in the past ten years will not likely be retracted, in my view; while their continuing progress will grind to a halt, I really don’t think they will lose anything. Deporting illegals? Those with criminal records, sure. But, here’s hoping my friend Michele’s husband, Algerian and Muslim, will be able to remain here with her.
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What upsets me most is the rhetorical style of the right wing, its so blank wall arrogant it snuffs out beauty and replaces it with some boring logical so called common sense. There’s a few here been hanging around here for 2 or 3 decades that won’t go away, they annoy me so much, Giuliani and Palin, seem to be just as hard to banish from your scene over there. Yuk!
Clinton (Bill) was very good at promoting peace in Northern Ireland, I don’t recall any Republican being much interested, or Tory for that matter – we can hope for progress, but we can’t expect it to be high on the agenda 😦
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Also of course Trump has stirred up a hornets nest, or nest of vipers or whatever – its all so similar to our Brexit campaign, the racist incidents haven’t yet died down, and the new government is pandering to it – we have a weekly TV debate on politics, I’m sure extreme right wingers are bombing the audience each week, steering the discussions into anger territory which seems to be the new frontier, its such a drag to anyone with brains – it looks like the left is going to be swept away at the next elections. They suddenly seem “too humane”
Its actually incredible, for 70+ yrs like father like son voted left in whole swathes of this part of the country, now the industry has gone, and with it the unions those communities have abandoned what was thought to be principles and loyalties, way of life and beliefs, looking to the right was unthinkable, and now suddenly its not just the right wing they want, its the far and extreme right! Divide and rule they call it, and why not? What have they got to lose? (probably all they have unless there’s a miracle!)
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Abusing my political opponents is my idea of political correctness! 😀 Xx
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Are you familiar with John Pilger? What is his political affiliation? To your comment, I recall saying early on Tuesday (on social media) that, in times of crisis -whether they be economical, or security-based – social issues always take a back burner and, for this reason, I suspected Trump would take the election. The intellectuals invariably fall on the side of the socially conscious left. Those who unconsciously wish to be controlled, i.e. the fearful (fear directly correlates with lack of information) have traditionally leaned toward the right. And, once humans are afraid, an interesting dichotomy forms. Fearful subjects are highly impressionable, possibly easier to control; yet, the behavior of the fearful can’t always be predicted, and their allegiances can swing wildly.
However, since money bought our politics, we now have some intellects in the right camp and many fearfully dependent in the left. This is why I am an Independent; I can’t jump in the ring with either major party. Plus, my ability to communicate gets easily muddled; I keep shifting between fact based reasoning and intuition, and this affects the power of my arguments.
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I’m not familiar with John Pilger, I just googled and see he’s an Aussie, so as such could be an outsider view – he used to write for the Mirror, which is currently left wing, but I understand it was right wing in times gone by, I have heard his name, but thats about it.
Some have said maybe the end is coming for Party politics, I understand that in some European countries power is distributed and shared across the floor. The old objection to this is there is less direction and decisive action, but then in a world run by big business as it is today, why not work with it, rather than against it?
We in the Uk always feel that the Germans seem to be very capable and successful as a nation in terms of unity strength industrial relations etc, while here its all power play, posturing, infighting, corruption, clinging on! I’m exasperated by politics here!
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Interesting, speaking of the Mirror, how much the US mirrors the UK (or, is the other way around?) in its political ethos. Yes; Germany. Staid, old, methodical Germany. The US is too proud to model after any continental country, be it Norway, Germany……even though there are systems that clearly work in these, and have for decades. The argument is always: “easy for them; they don’t have billions of people to manage.”
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Yes, too proud here too – unbelievably silly!!
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p.s. if the end is coming for party politics, I’d say the information age (principally the Internet) and the global society are the reasons. I’m ALL FOR IT, as you already know – and, have been for a longggg time. One thing party politics has done which is detrimental is encourage the couch and hide and work behind the scenes mentality which, outside of all but the most sensitive homeland security concerns, is just un-American; didn’t this bring about the collapse of Bernie’s, and then HRC’s, campaigns??
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Oh I would so like to see the end of party politics, its never worked, has only served to divide the public. I was listening to this guy on the radio the other day said that German politicians don’t lie, they say what they mean and mean what they say – this was in relation to UK Brexit negotiations, our side is playing the game, while their side just Isn’t! Its going to make for who knows what outcome! I don’t know if all or any of that is true, since the media is clearly in on the whole “Find a story” thing, but its a story with potential for them, if not us! 😉
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