I voted yesterday in the New York State Primary, the choice was between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton and I voted for Hillary Clinton. I wrote about it yesterday.

“I’m surprised you didn’t vote for the commie,” messaged Jerry Elkins, a man I have never met who posts an angry message on my Facebook Page once a year and then disappears.

It was an interesting choice for me, and a revealing one. Bernie Sanders is preaching revolution and I  love his message about the immorality of modern American economics and political policy. In very different ways, he and Donald Trump are calling the politicians and economists to account for the many lives they have damaged and shattered.

I appreciate the young (and older) people who are supporting Sanders and the idea of revolution. For much of my life I would have been one of them.  It will, perhaps, take a revolution to get the country straight again.

In a sense, this is the purpose of going to college, and of being young, to follow the heart and the passion before too much reality sets in and begins to wither the soul and the heart. Bless the young, when you are young, everything is possible, when you are older, you learn that some things are possible and some things are not.

I have my own ideas about revolution, and no presidential candidate is really a part of that.

Joseph Campbell wrote that revolutions occur inside of us, not on the streets.

“Revolution doesn’t have to do with smashing something,” he wrote, “it has to do with bringing something forth. If you spend all your time thinking about that which you are attacking, then you are negatively bound to it. You have to find the zeal in yourself and bring that out.”

I have been experiencing a revolution inside of myself these past few years, and it has little to do with aging, although that is a part of it. Revolutions are made for the young, caution is the faith of the older. It seems to me that both are vital, each necessary to keep the world in balance.

There is no need for anyone to apologize for the choices they make in the voting booth, or in their lives. The only one I have to please is the one I see in the mirror each morning. I do not live by the choices of others.

It is the duty of the young to make revolutions, it is the duty of people like me to try and pass along what we know and have seen. Bringing back the elixir, Campbell called out, have some humor, share what I know, pass it along, even if nobody wants to hear it.  No one is asking me for my opinion about revolution, and I don’t care to persuade anyone about it. It is a good and noble thing to vote for Bernie Sanders, a big part of me wanted to do it.

He has done a lot of good, his heart seems generous and honest to me.

But the revolution inside of me said something else, it said be careful, move slowly, be thoughtful.

Change is gradual, not instant. Polarized countries do not make the kind of revolutions I care to see. I don’t care to demonize Donald Trump or Ted Cruz or Bernie Sanders. None of them will bring about the end of the world, even if I don’t care to vote for them.

For me,  the decision to vote for Hillary Clinton was never hard. Like the others, she has said and done some dumb and troubling things, and like the others, she has been pilloried and demonized beyond what is civil or rational. I have done a lot of dumb and troubling things as well, and so have you. They are human beings, just like us. She doesn’t need to be perfect to be a President. I don’t know of one who was.

I think a revolution has begun. Donald Trump started it on one end of the spectrum and Bernie Sanders started it on the other. Both candidates have shown me and others – and stunned the media and political establishments – how many people feel angry and lost in the new economy, and living in rural life, as I do, and in the lost and dying cities of upstate New York, I see it every single day.

Anger is better channeled through political campaigns and governance than in the streets. In the Middle East, all kinds of revolutions started on Facebook and then sputtered and died. The bad guys have Facebook accounts too.

I like the idea of revolutions starting slowly, so we have time to think about them and argue about them and see them grow and evolve. This one is underway. Things are already different.

Hillary is, for me, is in the middle, she is a Middle Person, and I am learning that I am a Middle Person, I live in the middle.

Extremes make me uneasy, in the 60’s I covered that revolution, I didn’t join it. I wrote about the liberation movements, I wasn’t part of them. I was fascinated by the Occupy Movement, I didn’t join it. That is who I am. The revolution inside of me is about bringing something forth inside of me. That is my work, my teaching, my writing, my photography, my love. I am a watcher, not a soldier.

A number of my friends were disappointed in my decision to vote for Hillary Clinton, and they made it clear to me. But I was quite comfortable with myself. That is a big part of my own revolution, to be comfortable with myself. I will  not let politics become a dance of hate for me, as it is for so many people – some of them will send me hateful messages tonight for writing this.

But I am quite at peace. I never did waver, and I was not tormented or in pain about it. I don’t need to stand with any mob, however well meaning and I see mobs gathering all around these people.

I don’t write this push for Hillary Clinton’s election or to try to persuade anyone else to vote for her. Not my purpose or my business.

In the age of Facebook, I believe we are all entitled to  make our own decisions, in peace and with respect for one another. I belong to the Church Of Minding Your Own Business, like the Quakers, a dying faith. I believe in a civil communion with one another, even if I rarely see it. That is also part of my revolution. Am I a martyr for civility? I love the idea of it.

Primary day had important lessons for me, and none of them had to do with politics or the political campaign.

At this time in my life, I will continue to make my own revolution, and in our world that is revolutionary. If we all did it, Bernie Sanders would be unnecessary, and Donald Trump would be playing golf every morning at Mar-A-Largo.

That is an important and grounding thing for me to know.