Why vote?

This column is about why voting matters for us, as college students. Maybe that's why it was so difficult to write. \nWe sat down and discussed the reasons we think voting is important and means something as well as why it might actually mean nothing. We talked about how we are just two 20-year-olds in a country of nearly 300 million people, and how the effects of our vote would be miniscule. And we talked about how there are things going on in our country, in our world, that we don't approve of -- things we think could be done better. This led us to more questions in need of answers.\nWe thought about how we don't trust politicians, even though they're our best means for effecting change. We talked about how we might just be lazy, how it's very easy to just not register or not show up at the polls. And we talked about how we can't speak out about what our government is doing unless we do register, learn about all the issues and participate. We inquired more.\nWe talked about how politicians don't reach out to us, don't act like they really care about our votes and don't really care about our issues. We talked about how we feel like outsiders in the system, like we are at the first stage of a long learning process. And we talked about how they might be reaching out to us and we just aren't listening, and how having jumbled emotions and opinions does not leave us exempt from challenging ourselves and making decisions. And the questions continued. \nWe talked about how our generation knows how to program iPods and surf the Internet. We know the phone number of every pizza place in Bloomington, the rules of corn hole and the relationship status of every celebrity. And we talked about how we don't even know how to show up to vote. \nWe talked about how we have no real issue to rally around, no Vietnam like our parents. We talked about how to produce an electrifying issue, the draft must be reinstated, which we certainly don't want. And we talked about how we shouldn't have to wait for something so catastrophic to get involved, how we are not practicing foresight by way of our actions. We talked about how there are terrible things going on in the world and in our country -- poverty, genocide and disease -- that should give us excuse enough to vote, but don't. \nThis brings us back to our original question: Does voting matter, and if it does, why aren't we doing anything? Our own discussion left us with more questions than answers. But maybe that's good. If we don't have questions, what's our incentive to know more? Why care if there is nothing more to know? But then again, this was only our conversation. \nWhat do you think?