#19 Do I want to be the one deciding this?

Happy election day

I just dropped off my ballot at the drop box. The total cost of this year’s state and federal elections is a record-breaking $16.7 billion. (Whereas Mexico’s publicly funded elections cost less than 2% of that amount.)

$16.7 billion. And yet I struggled to find clear information about the ballot and the actual implications of my decisions. Regardless of the relative strengths of each candidate, what do I even know about the responsibilities of California’s treasurer, controller, insurance commissioner, and … god forbid … the state board of equalization (the only publicly elected tax commission in the country)? Should I and my Californians decide who fills these positions? Or should it be more like the federal government, where we simply elect a governor who then appoints cabinet positions?

While I struggled to find straightforward information to help me fill out my ballot, my inbox is full of opinion pieces telling me how the future of the country and planet will come down to just a handful of close congressional races in places where I don’t live.

Gen Z votes for the first time

On November 3, 1998, Millennials voted for the first time. Looking back on my journal entry from that morning, I had just finished working the graveyard shift at 7-11 and was waiting at the donut shop next door for the polls to open. (My love of donuts continues while my working conditions have improved.) Much like this year, I knew relatively little about the candidates but was still excited to vote. And I found it hilarious that there was a ballot proposition to make the sale of horse meat for human consumption a misdemeanor. (It passed, by the way, so please don’t eat horse meat in California.)

Today, Gen Z will vote in midterm elections for the first time, and how many of them choose to do so will help decide the close races and control of Congress. Given the near certainty of a 2024 Trump presidential bid, their voting turnout will also decide the next presidential election, as the exit polls from 2020 below highlight:

Exit polls by Age in 2020 election

For the past 22 years, the Harvard Youth Poll has surveyed a few thousand youth aged 18-24 about their views on politics and democracy. When the project launched in April 2000, the founders described their motivation:

In 1972, 50% of eligible voters aged 18-24 cast a ballot in the Presidential election. By 1996, the number of young people voting for President was down to 32%. This project is an effort to understand why political participation among young people continues to decline and what might be done to reverse the trend.

Virgin Records partnered with MTV to launch Rock The Vote in 1990, but youth turnout remained stubbornly low until the 2004 Bush v. Kerry election. Look at the graph below showing voter turnout rates among 18-24 year olds; we’re nearly back to the turnout levels of 1972 and this year youth may exceed them. Way to go, Gen Z!

The Harvard Youth Poll released their latest survey results last week, including a three-minute YouTube overview produced by some Gen Zers.

Make-believe quest

I spent nine hours on Saturday riding my bike with three friends through the redwood forests surrounding Santa Cruz.

We expected sunshine and blue skies. We got rain, fog, and mud. It was an excellent adventure. There is something prehistorically satisfying about spending an entire day exploring in nature with friends.

A quest, I am told, is a journey toward a specific goal that requires great exertion on the part of the hero, who must overcome many obstacles that lead to a change in outlook. I don’t know that any of us had a specific goal other than finishing, though we certainly overcame many obstacles and grew closer together in the process. This is our second consecutive year spending the day before Daylight Savings on a quest and I’m already looking forward to next year’s edition.

What we learn in our early 40s

I was unexpectedly touched by an opinion piece about the divorce of 45-year-old quarterback Tom Brady and 42-year-old supermodel Gisele Bündchen. What follows is a rather long excerpt that touches on a number of themes I’ve been discussing with friends in recent weeks.

Where my sympathies might lie with Mr. Brady, they revolve around what happens to a marriage when one person loses something he thinks is an important part of his identity. What is retirement compared to the roaring adoration of fans every time you step out onto the field? A lot of athletes find they don’t quite know what to do with themselves when their career begins to dim.

Ms. Bündchen hadn’t aged out of her career; she put it to the side to enable Mr. Brady’s. Motherhood can uproot anyone’s sense of who she used to be, even if Gisele’s fortune, fame and cultural power obviously exempt her from many of the practical realities that weigh so heavily on so many mothers.

Marriage, in its modern incarnation, has become less a contract between a couple and their community, and more a promise between two people to single-handedly fulfill each other’s every need. Pop culture narratives venerate marriage as an accomplishment by itself, whereby two people who are perfectly matched are emotionally and economically interdependent, untethered to friends and family and other members of their community — exactly the support network that might provide a sense of validation and worth when you can’t play pro football anymore.

For women like Ms. Bündchen in marriages where both partners have interests outside of the marriage and household, roles often shift based on availability, income, health and whatever they agreed to in the partnership. They also shift according to societal expectations, and even wealthy women like Ms. Bündchen, who can afford child care and outside help and has more control over her time than a lot of working women, are still subject to the old biases — that their role is essentially supportive and their own ambitions secondary.

What I’ve learned in my early 40s is that marriage is a source of great joy, comfort and growth, and it can be dangerous when one’s marriage becomes the sole source of an identity. Same as work, friendships, families and hobbies. No single source will satisfy us all of the time.

I am reminded of a reflection by endurance runner Bolota Asmerom toward the end of a long podcast. He says that running has given him everything. It is his source of pain, pleasure, and motivation. Bot now that he’s in his 40s and mindful that he could suffer a debilitating injury at any time, he is looking for his “plan B” — other sources of joy, meaning, and transcendence.

And with that, may you have a happy, meaningful, and transcendent week,

David