Day: November 5, 2008

I’m at my desk early and am seeing the signs every where. In Twitter about election results from not just the US part of my network, but globally. I was reminded at least 10 times by friends overseas yesterday to vote. This morning (and indeed all this Fall) I wake up to blog posts on blogs that never or rarely talk about politics, expressing their reactions. Janet Clarey. states the refrain right off…

I normally don’t write about politics here but today isn’t normal.

There are two lessons that strike me, aside from the tide-turning change that this election may bring both the US and the network of other countries we are inevitably connected to.

1. In a complex world, the boundaries of domains, of themes of focus, are inevitably interrupted by the fact that boundaries shift and blur. So while a business person might desire to refrain from politics on his or her blog (See Lee LeFever’s post a while back), politics is a part of life, and life is a part of business. So the question is, how do we decide in our social media participation where and how to draw boundaries that are often just constructs. Life is messy.
2. Hope is infectious and I’m glad. I’ll carry that hope into my own personal action and support for my country’s’ leaders and citizens of the world to make the world better. I feel that infection rolling across my networks. I’m also aware that my networks are more politically homogeneous than the world, and that there are others today who may feel a loss of hope. They deserve hope too, so I appreciated Obama’s inclusiveness and seriousness about that in his acceptance speech. It is a theme that winds deeply back into my work, beyond any politics.

So in the end, a post about politics, something I don’t normally write about, is also embedded in the work of connection, communication, community and change. As I travel overseas as an American in the last months, everyone asked me about the election. It gave them hope and, I sensed, some reason to re-embrace their relationship with America. I am imagining my friends in Kenya, who have been through a horrible time with their own elections, and can envision them dancing in the streets like many have in cities across the US – a newfound sense of connection.

I can’t deny it. I am waking up today with hope. May this next era be an era of hard work. More of a culture of love than of war. An era of hope in a time of huge challenges.

From Mitten:

Mixtape from http://favtape.com/artist/ok go

Photos:

• creative commons on Flickr from Maruko

• Touch Drawing from Deborah Koff-Chapin