The Politics of Being Human

I’m sitting at Wyalusing State Park Campground listening to Bruce Springsteen’s “Wild Horses”, watching my fire and the sunset over the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers.

I came here the day after election day and everyone is waiting for results on who will be the next president. The weather has also been unusually warm for November, so this campground is at about 30% capacity. More people are getting out and taking advantage of the nice weather before winter comes.

As I’m walking around this campground these couple of days, what I’ve witnessed is the politics of being human. 

There’s a good variety of Wisconsinites who are here enjoying camping. The majority of campers here tend to fall into two groups: the hardcore younger guys with their name-brand tents, boots and beards; or the older men and couples with their pop-up campers and camouflage jackets that they’ve owned for years.

Then there are a couple of me’s – younger solo women campers.

We’re all here getting out to camp: to connect with the outdoors, to get away from it all, to hike, to enjoy the falling leaves, views of the sunrise/set, etc.

Whatever our real reasons for being here, we all go to nature to reset. We can agree that being outside makes us happy.

We walk on the road or trails and pass each other, give a warm and cordial Midwest smile, and say ‘hello’.

It doesn’t matter who each of us voted for in that moment.

We share a connection. We are the only people around in a vast expanse of trees and hills and rivers. We have to look out for each other. We are only human after all. 

We could make assumptions on each other by the clothes we wear, type of car we drive, age, gender, how run down our equipment is. All kind of things can put each of us into a stereotype.

It’s an intense time in the world and for our country. We are divided. But here at the campground, we are decent to each other. Why? Because we all share a connection. A connection of being human and being on this Earth. No matter how we want to enjoy it, we can agree that we need this time in nature; that we have a similarity of being humans on this planet and we are all sharing the enjoyment of nature. So we treat each other as such. 

No matter who wins the election, I still have hope in humanity.

Story full circle! And I can only hope that this story comes full circle in November as well.

If no one has told you yet today, go vote. You know who I'll be voting for.