The challenge, dear government is: ‘Do you want to benefit from the common touch?’

The real problem I’ve found which ‘doesn’t make sense’ in public policy is this: Like millions, I’m a citizen and part of society. But there seems to be no way our voices can get through. Yet the policies are all about us. We are the public. So please, dear government, would you consider how you might benefit from the common touch?

Why? Because you are honoured in your calling. And honour needs to be tested. For with it you bear the responsibilities of government: To protect, to provide, and to invest in your citizens. (World Economic Forum).

You already have the framework to meet your responsibilities as Protector and Provider within a structured, democratic society. But how exactly do you invest in me as a citizen? And in the man-in-the-street, the girl-next-door, the-kid-on-the-block and the old-lady-down-the-road? Because to invest in us without knowing us would be a bad investment. We are everyman. If we stretch out to you … will you stretch back to us?

Here’s a poem. It serves to illustrate the problem of how the common touch goes unnoticed and unasked for.

The Average Child by Mike Buscemi:

‘I don’t cause teachers trouble;

My grades have been okay.

I listen in my classes.

I’m in school every day.

My teachers think I’m average;

My parents think so too.

I wish I didn’t know that though;

There’s lots I’d like to do.

I’d like to build a rocket;

I read a book on how.

Or start a stamp collection …

But no use trying now.

‘Cause since I found I’m average,

I’m smart enough, you see

To know there’s nothing special

I should expect of me.

I’m part of that majority,

That hump part of the bell

Who spends his life unnoticed

In an average kind of hell.’

 

 

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