republican or democrat?

A political party affiliation is not life term. Its not an identity - its not for ever. People have been known to give up their religion and embrace new faiths and religions. This is but a choice they get to make every four years. The divide in the country is the misconstrued notion that someone is either a republican or a democrat. There is no such perfect correlation. I am not a democrat or a republican. I agree with or share the same stance of one of the parties in some issues. But that does not make me a Democrat or Republican for life. I happen to think that one might be a better choice for government in the current times - that's about it.

I think - the biggest problem facing America now - is this divide. This assumption that a person is a democrat or a republican and that is their identity. People seem to have forgotten that its just a party and having voted for one of the parties last time round or the last few times or always so far - does not mean they have to again. It is just a choice they make for four years of governance.

This strategy is apparently working out very well for the parties. But not so well for the people. Of late, the two party system seems to be doing more bad than good for the people of America. The two parties seem to be representing two ends of the spectrum and the people are deprived of a chance to choose what's best for them - but are rather forced to choose one of two broken choices. And all elections seem to be about the same issues over and over again. Pro choice vs Pro Life (This is a really smart choice of words - good marketing. You can't be against life - can you?) and tax issues and a few other of the sort. And all people seem to think about - or are made to think about - is these few things when making the choice. People already have strong opinions on most of these - which seem to decide where their vote is going.

From what I have heard (and seen a bit of in the past decade I have been here) of the American people, their biggest factor for success has been their willingness to see the mistakes they make and work to resolve the issues/causes that lead to the mistakes. I hope I get to see more of this quality in their approach to their politics and government in the coming years.

back to basics....

What we see around and is as is, we try to define and quantify. The human mind is a complicated mess. so complicated that we haven't yet understood it well enough. And there goes the quantification again.

When you look at it, nature defines a set of rules. Rules which to most animals is 'nature'. Its just the way it is - and there just isn't another alternative. Take love for example. Take any animal - wolves seem to be good for stories of late.. lets stick with them. Once partnered, one risks all for the other and when the kids are born, they risk it all again for the survival of the kin. This the human eye sees - and calls 'love' and then we quantify the term. 'Do you love me enough to do XYZ?', 'how much do you love me', 'am i important enough' and the lot. This is a folly of the free mind. The devil's workshop kind of free. We invent terms and quantify them to complicate our otherwise 'natural' life and the relationships we bear among each other.

This again is the devil at work - for as is observed, the poorer a family, more often than not the more tightly coupled are them in all. But as living, the process itself gets easier, and people have time to spare - time they would have spent making ends meet - they tend to make life and relationships more complicated. The family that struggles to put food on the table on a daily basis, have less time to analyse and in general ...,be unhappy and tend to enjoy the little time they get to spend with their close ones.

Most of us, it seems so, are on paths that we assume will make us happy and satisfied with what we have one day. The well versed phrases of 'Life is what happens when we are making plans for it' and the kind have become all but cliches. Everyone seems to know and understand the importance of living the moment but very few seem to actually implement what they know. This seems to affect our relationships adversely too. The solution could be to bring out the animal in us. Put this messy brain of ours to use to differentiate what is natural from what is its own manipulation of nature and stick to the basics. We might end up a 'more' satisfied lot after all.