Dodging Political Bullets

No, this isn’t about how to do politics and not get in trouble. This is a quick little piece where I express relief that I didn’t run for Midland (Ontario) town council in 2018 when there were few candidates in my ward. (I thought perhaps I should at least try a campaign).

Fortunately(?) I avoided that fate because I was not well enough to enter the race. Likely I wouldn’t have had a chance in any event, but one never knows.

The problem is, that I care too much about our little community and what happens here, so I still participate and am at risk of being drawn into the fray. I don’t want to. I actually don’t think I have the mental makeup for what I perceive to be all the things that go with being a politician.

It’s easy to have a well-founded opinion (and even easier to have a not so well founded opinion, but I digress). Add to this that our little town is actually has quite a bit of information about what is going on at the local level, and it’s easy to get sucked into thinking one wants to be on council.

Having thought about it though, most of what council does is either housekeeping or not all that interesting to me (as you can see from my technical / professional blog my primary interest is technology), so really I’d be spending a lot of time doing things I’d rather not. I’ve also realized that most of council and town staff are actually doing quite decent job of things in our town (contrary to the opinion of at least one councillor who has what I think is a bit of a ‘saviour complex’, or at least one of looking to the be hero in their own melodrama).

I don’t think I personally have enough ‘value’ to add to council for me to put my name on a ballot, so I’ll pay attention, voice my opinion (probably more often and loudly than I should), and generally ‘do my civic duty’, but I have no intention of being on council, or even all that influential (except of course if no one else bothers to respond when the town tries to reach out to constituents and I end up as one of the few saying anything; but that’s hardly my fault if it happens).

Now if I can just get on with getting back to my career now that I seem to be mostly recovered from major crises.