I Just Don't Have The Passion For Elections And Road Trips That I Used To
When I think back to 10 years ago this summer, it's striking just how much less connected I am now to what were my driving passions in 2004.....endless analysis of elections before and after the vote....and my road trip routines. My passion level for both have seemed to grow and fall in tandem, both originating in the early 90s when I began to do some of earliest exploration of Minnesota towns in particular while assisting my dad with his brief vinyl repair business. Not long after that I received my first World Almanac which featured county-level election returns from across the country. In the late 1990s, the escalation continued as I started to expand my horizons to explore new territory on my Minnesota road trips in tandem with my receipt of the Minnesota blue book, which broke down 1996 general election returns down to the precinct level.
But it was the year 2000 when everything came together for what would be my peak period of road trip and election passion. Several opportunities arose for me to take road trips to uncharted territory in 2000, so much so that I formalized an effort to get to all 734 incorporated towns in Minnesota. And of course, the closest and most exciting Presidential election in history occurred in 2000 as well, further conflating my dual obsessions.
The peak period for road trip fever for me was 2001-2004, as every over-the-top drive assured me of charting a stack of territory I'd never visited before. After 2004, I retained most of my passion for road trips for a few more years, but my Minnesota road trips in particular lost their urgency after 2007 when I completed my tour of every town in the state. As for elections, I held on at peak passion level from 2001-2006, and the frequency of my politics-related posts on this blog tells the story of my declining intensity. Back in 2006, the first year Mark My Words was online, the blog was abuzz with several election-related posts per month tracking the Democrats fight to win that year's midterms. For a variety of reasons, the frequency of my political/election posts on this blog has greatly diminished, but the primary reason is that the passion for full-time election obsession is gone.
So why is the passion gone? For road trips, it's a matter of having visited everyplace within a reasonable driving distance of my hometown. In 2014, I find the most enjoyable road trips to be the ones where I visit a lot of new territory, but having already explored so much within driving distance, it's getting harder to find trips that take me to places I've never been. If I go someplace in North or South Dakota, for example, I have to drive several hours in familiar territory to get to whatever the destination is, meaning I spend a lot of time checked out coming to and from. I'm adjusting some of my road trip patterns to the south and east as opposed to the north and west and hope to have some more interesting road trips in the years ahead as a result. With that said, I think my patience and attention span for these road trips is no longer what it used to be, so I don't anticipate the era of wide-eyed, youthful passion for road trips to ever return in its 2000-2004 heyday.
My loss of zeal for elections first became evident in 2007. For the previous three election cycles, I spent until the next cycle feverishly categorizing and recategorizing numbers into tidy charts and grids. It never really got old and I ate, slept, and breathed election analysis before and after the first Tuesday in November. But in 2007, I quickly grew tired of this usual pattern, even after the very impressive midterm election victory the Democrats pulled off the year prior. And while I couldn't get enough of the pre-election coverage in earlier cycles, the 2008 primaries burned me out and I was checked out of the 2008 election until after Labor Day. Now I really got into the 2012 election lead-up but have only been running quarter-throttle for this midterm cycle as I did in 2010. As for the obsessive charting and categorization of election returns after the election, I still do it, but it tends to last for about three months after the election and then vanish for the next 20 months unlike a decade ago when I charted these election figures continuously. My increased cynicism about the futility of election outcomes no matter who wins has not helped in sustaining my passion level either.
I'll always have a soft spot for both road trips and elections. I still feel some level of excitement even for the road trips that have lost the majority of their luster over the years, and some of the road trips still prove thoroughly exciting, enjoyable, and memorable. Furthermore, I still get a major case of election fever every fall, even on odd-numbered years, and take to my VHS cassettes to watch recorded coverage of past elections before burning out on it in time for the holidays. I suspect this pattern will continue on both elections and road trips. It's sad in a way that my youthful giddiness for politics and road-tripping has ebbed in the last decade as I'd like to get that passion back at times, but time and people change (even me occasionally!) and resisting that change is futile.
But it was the year 2000 when everything came together for what would be my peak period of road trip and election passion. Several opportunities arose for me to take road trips to uncharted territory in 2000, so much so that I formalized an effort to get to all 734 incorporated towns in Minnesota. And of course, the closest and most exciting Presidential election in history occurred in 2000 as well, further conflating my dual obsessions.
The peak period for road trip fever for me was 2001-2004, as every over-the-top drive assured me of charting a stack of territory I'd never visited before. After 2004, I retained most of my passion for road trips for a few more years, but my Minnesota road trips in particular lost their urgency after 2007 when I completed my tour of every town in the state. As for elections, I held on at peak passion level from 2001-2006, and the frequency of my politics-related posts on this blog tells the story of my declining intensity. Back in 2006, the first year Mark My Words was online, the blog was abuzz with several election-related posts per month tracking the Democrats fight to win that year's midterms. For a variety of reasons, the frequency of my political/election posts on this blog has greatly diminished, but the primary reason is that the passion for full-time election obsession is gone.
So why is the passion gone? For road trips, it's a matter of having visited everyplace within a reasonable driving distance of my hometown. In 2014, I find the most enjoyable road trips to be the ones where I visit a lot of new territory, but having already explored so much within driving distance, it's getting harder to find trips that take me to places I've never been. If I go someplace in North or South Dakota, for example, I have to drive several hours in familiar territory to get to whatever the destination is, meaning I spend a lot of time checked out coming to and from. I'm adjusting some of my road trip patterns to the south and east as opposed to the north and west and hope to have some more interesting road trips in the years ahead as a result. With that said, I think my patience and attention span for these road trips is no longer what it used to be, so I don't anticipate the era of wide-eyed, youthful passion for road trips to ever return in its 2000-2004 heyday.
My loss of zeal for elections first became evident in 2007. For the previous three election cycles, I spent until the next cycle feverishly categorizing and recategorizing numbers into tidy charts and grids. It never really got old and I ate, slept, and breathed election analysis before and after the first Tuesday in November. But in 2007, I quickly grew tired of this usual pattern, even after the very impressive midterm election victory the Democrats pulled off the year prior. And while I couldn't get enough of the pre-election coverage in earlier cycles, the 2008 primaries burned me out and I was checked out of the 2008 election until after Labor Day. Now I really got into the 2012 election lead-up but have only been running quarter-throttle for this midterm cycle as I did in 2010. As for the obsessive charting and categorization of election returns after the election, I still do it, but it tends to last for about three months after the election and then vanish for the next 20 months unlike a decade ago when I charted these election figures continuously. My increased cynicism about the futility of election outcomes no matter who wins has not helped in sustaining my passion level either.
I'll always have a soft spot for both road trips and elections. I still feel some level of excitement even for the road trips that have lost the majority of their luster over the years, and some of the road trips still prove thoroughly exciting, enjoyable, and memorable. Furthermore, I still get a major case of election fever every fall, even on odd-numbered years, and take to my VHS cassettes to watch recorded coverage of past elections before burning out on it in time for the holidays. I suspect this pattern will continue on both elections and road trips. It's sad in a way that my youthful giddiness for politics and road-tripping has ebbed in the last decade as I'd like to get that passion back at times, but time and people change (even me occasionally!) and resisting that change is futile.
posted by Mark at 4:05 PM
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