Winning Is Everything

Friends have said to me, “You won everything but the election.”

Since “my major involvement and reason for running to represent District 21, was to support Governor Linda Lingle’s transition to a 21st century government for the challenge of these times,” they pronounced, “Mission accomplished; she won.”

“But you didn’t do so badly yourself,” they continued, “you produced some outstanding blogs in support of your campaign that confirms your presence as the premier writer of original content on the Web. You were the star speaker of the candidates forums, and produced a good piece for the Candidates in Focus for public television, as a model for public speaking on political matters.”

Others liked the signing by bike and electric scooters -- as the most creative presentations they’ve seen. So I broke some new ground -- even by taking a whole day to move through one block, talking to people.

I’ve never been a mass media, random activity, conformist -- because being that way doesn’t allow being on the creative, cutting edge of thought -- where I like to be. So I had reservations about running for an elective office but relented and accepted as an experience I think everyone ought to do -- at some point in their life.

I can now say I’ve done my turn -- and move on to whatever else life brings. Politics and me never seemed like the ideal fit -- but I could recognize somebody else that seemed to be the genius in that field, operating in their natural element, and maybe help them out a little bit in my own way.

That’s what everybody needs to do in life -- to find their true calling, whatever it is. They shouldn’t talk about sacrificing their lives holding one job they hate and resent all their lives -- and then expect to be compensated royally for doing so, by convincing everybody else they have the "worst" job ever created (by themselves and their unions).

The greatest reward and compensation is finding out who one is and what one loves to do in life -- and not making up one’s mind with finality before one has had a chance to explore many of the options. That’s how people die all their lives -- rather than live it.

You can’t learn all these things academically, hypothetically, speculatively -- but have to learn it actually. That is the difference between some people’s “knowledge’ and other people’s knowledge, or insight -- that is readily apparent to people who have gone through the experience, rather than just learned the words and generalizations.

Because the generalized experience is not the individual -- which is the actual reality, a totally different universe for every individual -- as determined by their unique makeup and choices in life. That is the greater movement of life into the 21st century that I’ll be continuing to participate in as a representative of cutting edge thinking in Hawaii.

That is the kind of education we should be preparing people for -- and not just preserving and defending the status quo of life as we've always known it before -- and there can be no other way.