There’s a certain popular song by Lorde written for the Hunger Games called “Yellow Flicker Beat.” It’s a timely song, and I think it adequately represents our cultural attitude as a whole during this election season. Lorde writes: “We’re at the start, the colors disappear // I never watch the stars, there’s so much down here.”

Depressing, yes, but I think the implications are even more disturbing than we initially realize. The addictive dubstep backdrop serves to distract—even romanticize—the disparity of that last line: “I never watch the stars, there’s so much down here.” Presumably, the narrator of this song has become so distraught by all the chaos down on earth that she has given up looking at the stars. It’s a quiet, undramatic gesture, and most of us would be tempted to sympathize with her. After all, who has time for idle star-gazing when there’s “so much down here”? We’ll go back and look at the stars after we “set things right.” We’ve taken this mind-set for granted, but it masks a dangerous and tragic mistake. In fact, I think it serves as the central pivoting point of all our troubles—the fatal gesture that set our country down the wrong track from the very beginning.

I do not like writing about politics, and that is not because I do not have political opinions. We all do, but at this point my two cents aren’t worth a dam. You may present a highly logical case for why candidate X is wrong and candidate Y is right, and I will politely nod and smile. But one of them is going to be elected this November whether you like it or not, and it is no understatement to say that, either way, the odds are not in your favor.

The real reason I do not like writing about politics is because I think there is a much deeper problem in our world. You have probably heard it said more than once that “the future of our country is at stake” regarding our current presidential candidates. That may very well be true. However, there is a second unspoken claim always lurking behind the first. When people tell you that the future of our country is at stake, they are adding, however indirectly, “…and so is your happiness.” They don't say it outright, but you'll notice that they can never promote their own candidate without insinuating that you will be a very miserable person if you vote for the other. No matter how true the first claim is, the second is most emphatically false. As long as even the ghost of that thought drifts in the back of our minds, no opinion of ours will be of the slightest importance. It is time this unspoken thought was addressed.

Our generation has been raised to believe that we are entitled to nice, comfortable, employed lives, regardless of race, gender, religion, etc. I am not necessarily condemning a society that encourages non-discrimination. But let’s get the idea out of our head that we were “entitled” to it. We enjoy these privileges because they were given to us, not because we deserve them. They are gifts, not tribute. The Declaration states that all people are “endowed by their Creator by certain inalienable rights.” We hear these words so often that we don’t pause to recognize the most important part of the phrase: endowed by their Creator. Men, no doubt, are obligated to uphold these rights in relation to their fellow men, but God is under no such obligation. The majority of the population has never even tasted such rights, and most of them never will. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. If you do not believe in God, you may call it Fate, or Luck, for it makes no difference concerning my point. The only human right you have ever truly possessed is the one right that can never be taken away: the right to be joyful, regardless of who you are and what your circumstance is. Ironically, it is the one right we have completely neglected to exercise. You are not entitled to happiness, but the pursuit of happiness. Since when did we start expecting the government to do the pursuing for us?

If you are anything like me, you are accustomed to hearing about the history of bombings, famine, and concentration camps from the safety of the classroom. We have been told that we live in America, and things like that just don’t happen anymore. That was the American dream…or perhaps it was only the American day-dream. Bad things can still happen to us, and are happening to us. We have not somehow become immune to them. I certainly do not want a second Nazi Germany rising up in the near future, I am only saying that we were never safe, in the long run, from the worst of human cruelties. We may be cut off from Nazi Germany by time, but we are irrevocably linked to them by human nature. Perhaps you could say that our generation enjoyed a very pleasant sabbatical, but we cannot escape our nature any more than we can escape our own shadow. Sooner or later, we will have to face it again.

Don’t walk away; I am not the pessimist that I sound like. Yes, the very worst thing you can imagine happening may very well happen, but none of that will matter if you remember your intrinsic human right to be joyful. Imagine that the candidate you most despise, the candidate you think is going to ruin the country forever, gets elected. So be it. Imagine a revolution breaks out, we plunge into poverty, declare open war with ISIS, or get forced into living underground. So be it. Sometimes the bad-guys win. But don’t let some silly old man (or woman) sitting around in D.C. stop you from staring at the stars. They do not have that power over you. Do not say, like Lorde, “I never watch the stars” but say like Samwise Gangee, “There is light and beauty up there that no shadow can touch.”

Some will say that this kind of star-gazing is just another form of escapism. The act of reaching out into a world we can never touch is just another way of forgetting about our real problems here on Earth. Well, first of all, Mr. Tolkien would not see it that way. In answer to the accusation that Lord of the Rings was escapist, Tolkien ominously replied "the only people who are trying to prevent escape are the prison guards." Secondly, all of human culture up till this day holds the exact opposite view. In the old days, before we invented radars, nautical navigation used to heavily depend on a preliminary course in astronomy. The Magi in the Gospels used the star of Bethlehem to find the Messiah. Looking at the stars does not make us forget where we are, but help us remember where we are. It is when we look down that we forget. When we lose sight of the North Star, we lose our only way home.

I would like to recall to your mind a memorable scene in the movie Titanic. The ship is halfway underwater. Many have already drowned. Mother and child cling to one another, and best friends have forsaken each other. Amidst the turmoil, the ship’s string quartet is still standing. The lead violinist surveys the scene with an expression of sad resignation. Then, with sudden resoluteness, he lifts the violin to his chin, playing the tune “Nearer My God to Thee.” The others in the quartet hear him and join in.

Notice what happens (or doesn't happen) here. The ship does not stop sinking. People do not stop dying. Nobody even pauses to listen. While the overwhelming romance of the scene reduces most of us to tears, our intellect screams against it. Why aren’t they doing something useful, like helping the women and children into the life-boats, or even saving their own lives? But pay close attention to your emotions, for they tell you a different story. They insist that it is a beautiful, in fact an infinitely preferable choice. Choosing to play music at that moment, when music is the last thing on anyone’s mind, somehow renders a seemingly unbearable situation bearable. It is irrelevant, of course, but that does not bother us at all—in fact, it is the very irrelevance of it that is so moving. Even if the musicians are bound to the sinking ship and the inevitable forces of nature, at least the notes they play will be free. The violinist knew that if he was going to die, this would be the portal through which his soul would escape: through Music, the enchanted place where decaying body meets with eternal spirit. This way, and only this way, can a human being find the path to freedom. This is how you wield your deepest and most potent right to joyfulness.

Let’s give up this nonsense about waiting till we “set things right” before resuming the quest for knowledge and beauty. The quest begins now. As C.S. Lewis put it, “if men postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would have never begun.” If we wait until things are “set right” we will be waiting for the rest of our lives. Now, that does not mean we need to go on some grand adventure. We do not need to climb Mt. Everest, swim the Atlantic naked, or date the Queen of England. We simply need to switch off the news. Get up, take a walk, say hello to your dog, dance with your niece, write a letter, call your parents and say that you love them, tell a joke, sing a song, or just pick up your fiddle and play. Sure, it doesn't fix anything, but maybe fixing things was never our job. If the ship is sinking, then there is no better time than now to enjoy the little things that give us happiness—the only things that ever truly gave us happiness at all. Let's show the Capitol that they don't own us.