What defines our choices on the current elections?
Marcelo Manucci and Noël Salviolo
Clocks don’t stop ticking. The World doesn’t stop spinning. Things never stop happening. Someone is always awake. Something is always going on. And thanks to the internet, social media and globalization, for the first time we all know about what’s happening on the other side of the world, live, as if we were actually there ourselves.
We are more informed than ever before. And despite our cultural, geographical and personal differences we are also more connected than ever before. There is an international agenda that affects us all, and amongst all of the current latest news one thing we currently have in common is our surprise regarding the presidential elections in the U.S.A. The international public can’t stop talking about who said what, what will happen next and who will be the United State’s next/new president.
The elections have us divided. One side struggles to understand the other, and some people find themselves not supporting anyone at all. But putting aside for a moment which candidate is leading the polls and who is most likely to become president, today we take a moment to pause and ask ourselves:
What is everyone basing their opinions on? Why do people choose one candidate over the other? What are the reasons’ behind it all?
Searching for sense within chaos
As we have begun describing, the world we currently live in is a chaotic place. The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘Chaos’ as: “Complete disorder and confusion”. The adjective ‘chaos’ doesn’t necessarily have to have a negative connotation to it, but it can rather be taken as a description which recognizes the multiple elements that affect us all simultaneously. We can add how currently technology has increased the speed with which these events appear and affect us, and how it all influences everyone differently. But, before understanding how people are making sense of the elections in particular, it’s vital to understand how we process reality as a whole.
Many times in our personal lives, we assume, with profound certainty, a specific perception of reality and we defend it vehemently. However, we do not realize that our perception is only a picture which has particular colors (that can be bright, warm, dark or gray) depending on our personal emotional framework. What you see around you depends on your emotions. These emotions influence the design of your daily landscape. We address daily events from the perspective of a personal image that takes on a particular color according to the emotional connection one has to the situation.
To comprehend this, we could compare the current events that surround us to a puzzle. What is important to note is that rather than it being a puzzle that comes in a sealed box and which has a predetermined shape, it is a puzzle which everyone designs for themselves (whilst sharing the same pieces).
This is the process through which we organize and make sense of the world around us, in a way that is personal to each individual. Based on this structure (puzzle) that each of us creates it is that we base our views on life and our decisions on. It is almost as if it is a personalized code through which we decipher our surroundings and strategize our way forward, and since it is tied together and sustained emotionally it is that we guide everything we do and choose with the objective of making sure we maintain it.
The emotional connection of our landscape
We lead our own personal landscape. We are the owners of our (wide or narrow) territory upon which we make decisions every day. Our personal territory refers to the choices and possibilities you are open to and that you implement in your everyday movements, decisions, and relationships. Like an engineer, proud of a formula they have produced, an artist, proud of a painting they have created or a writer proud of a text they have formed, we are all proud representatives of our inner landscape which we will not let go of that easily, and which we will fight to maintain the way we have envisioned it.
We need to explain to ourselves the world around us as to be able to withstand the emotional impact of our living conditions. Therefore: We live inside our explanation of reality. Our ‘inner landscape’. We decide based on a narrative of facts; a personal explanation. We do not make decisions based on actual facts. For that reason, sometimes, our decisions intend to support and sustain our personal landscape of the circumstances instead of resolving them.
Thus, returning to the current elections, the public isn’t choosing which candidate to support based on the isolated characteristics of the candidate, or the proposals they present, or the political party they belong to; what people are basing their choices on is who represents most effectively their own personal inner landscape. In other words, what people are founding their choices on and what people are in fact choosing is their own inner landscape. Everyone is sustaining their decisions and choices on who maintains the ideals, framework and outlook on life that every individual guides his or her own life with: their inner landscape.
Why do we protect our landscape beyond the true circumstances? What is the benefit of this self-deception? Probably it is because self-deception is less emotionally traumatic than disappointment. Put in other words: disappointment is more costly for our emotions than accepting deception. It is more costly for people to disarm their personal map of reality because it involves transforming their reference points when dealing with diverse situations.
What landscape are you choosing? Which candidate represents this emotional connection? Do the candidates have the capacity to transform a new landscape for the country? Can the candidates change the the emotions of your inner landscape?