Now I guess I have.

I spent eight hours of election day sitting in a polling station. During that time about 250 of the slightly over 700 registered voters for that precinct voted. That kept me, listed as the vice-chair of the polling station, a representative of the Meretz party, moderately busy. I checked the ID cards of the voters, verifying that they were actually who they claimed to be, all the while trying to learn something about those people's lives from the picture on their ID cards and the very limited personal information accessible there.

I'd brought a pad of paper with me, expecting that perhaps I'd find time to do some writing on this column, but even during the slow periods it was more interesting to visit with the others personing the station along with me. What's more, the main feeling that took shape in me while reviewing the voters' ID cards was a sense of how divorced the topics discussed in these columns are from those voters. In the past I've argued that "RL" is really only a synonym for whatever sort of life we're most used to, with no greater claim to being the real thing (if there is such a thing) than any other transmutation. Yet somehow, as I looked at those ID cards and again and again noted to myself how divorced my chosen topics of discussion seem to be from the people I encountered, I had the strange sensation of being met smack in the face with what might be called the default "RL", perhaps even the "silent majority RL".



Go to: Nothing but ... but not the Whole.