Be the Thirteenth: The Underrated Power of Simply Showing Up
- Catherine Huckaby
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
You're sitting at the city council meeting. Someone stands up to complain about the proposed sidewalk. Their voice rises. Their face gets red.
They're not wrong about the concern, but they're making it impossible for anyone to actually solve it.
You look around the room. Twelve people showed up. Your city has hundreds of thousands rooftops.
The reasonable people stayed home. They almost always do.
There used to be wide space between "I disagree with you" and "you're my enemy."
That space—where you could have different opinions about the school budget or the zoning change and still loan each other lawn mowers—has collapsed.
Now disagreement means warfare. Different opinions mean different tribes. Political yard signs predict which neighbors you'll avoid.
We didn't lose this space because people care less. We lost it because caring got weaponized into outrage, and outrage became the only volume level many recognize.
When every issue is a crisis, every disagreement is a war, and every neighbor is a combatant, we can't hear anything anymore. It's just noise.
Constant, exhausting noise.
And the loudest voices? They're running the show.
The Math of Apathy
That city council meeting with twelve people? It's not unusual.
Scale it up. In a city of nearly one million people, maybe seventy show up to city council meetings. That's less than 0.01 percent of the population. When 99.99 percent of residents stay home, the 0.01 percent who show up wield all the power.
The angry people aren't necessarily wrong. They're just the only ones showing up.
You're Being a Thermometer
There's a powerful distinction between being a thermometer and being a thermostat.
A thermometer just reflects whatever temperature it's in. It has no agency. It just reacts.
A thermostat regulates temperature. It decides what the temperature should be and makes it happen.
Right now, most of us are thermometers. We doom scroll through social media and mirror the outrage. We watch YouTube and adopt the anxiety. We're not setting the tone—we're reflecting it.
When you only react to the loudest inputs, you hand control to whoever's willing to scream the loudest, and the longest.
The Frazzle Is Real
Constant digital interruption and high-stakes political rhetoric keep us in a state of "frazzle". Cognitive overwhelm where stress hormones spike and our ability to process our environment breaks down.
You can't think clearly when you're frazzled.
You can't listen.
You can't problem-solve.
You just react.
A nonprofit consultant with decades of experience offers a simple practice:
Before you walk into work or back into your home, sit in your car for five minutes. Turn everything off and just breathe.
That pause turns down the volume enough that you can walk into your next space as a person, not as a reaction.
Becoming a Thermostat
If you want to stop being a thermometer, you need to start regulating temperature instead of reflecting it.
Replace "But" with "And"
"I hear your concern about traffic, but we need more housing" tells someone their concern doesn't matter.
Try this: "I hear your concern about traffic, and we need more housing. How do we address both?"
That word—and—creates space for solutions instead of forcing people to choose sides.
Apply the Driveway Test
Before you post that angry comment or send that heated email, ask yourself: "Can I say this to them face-to-face in the driveway tomorrow?"
If not, don't type it.
The digital world invites aggression that the physical world can't sustain.
You have to look your neighbors in the eye. You have to wave at them. You have to live next door to them.
Separate Positions from Interests
When your neighbor says, "No new construction on our street," that's their position.
Their interest might be traffic safety, privacy, or property values.
You can often address the interest without accepting the position.
Plant trees for privacy. Add speed bumps for safety.
Show Up to Listen
We've colonized silence.
Elevators have music. Stores have playlists. Cars have podcasts. Every moment is filled with sound, and we've lost the ability to just... stop.
But silence isn't empty. It's functional.
When you pause before responding, you create space for the other person's humanity to land. When you sit quietly for five minutes in your driveway, you reset your nervous system.
One engagement manager points out something crucial: when somebody is angry, it means they care.
But you can only hear the care underneath the anger if you pause long enough to listen.
Making It Safe to Disagree
Remember that space between "I disagree with you" and "you're my enemy"? You can rebuild it.
It requires creating psychological safety. The shared belief that you can speak up and offer different viewpoints without getting attacked.
Most people hide their actual views to avoid social isolation. The reasonable middle goes silent because it's not safe.
Building trust only happens through consistent, authentic connection. You might not accomplish anything together the first five times you meet. But eventually, you build credibility based on relationships, not transactions.
Disagreement and the challenge of ideas isn't just important—it's absolutely necessary.
The disagreement isn't the problem. It's the lack of relationship underneath it.
What Are You Modeling?
The people closest to us are watching what we actually do, not just what we say.
When we rage-post on Facebook or X about local politics, they see that. When we avoid community meetings because "it won't make a difference anyway," they learn that staying home is normal.
But they also see the opposite.
One woman running for mayor now remembers her grandfather discussing current events when she was seven and ending every conversation by asking what she was going to do about it. As a kid eating a popsicle, she thought the question was ridiculous. But it stuck.
Your neighbors, kids or grandkids don't need you to be perfect. They need you to be an example of someone who shows up.
Someone who regulates temperature instead of reflecting it.
Someone who can disagree with neighbors and still wave hello the next morning.
When you're the person who attends events or meetings without yelling or complaining, you give permission for others to do the same.
Right now, the next generation is learning that being a good citizen means being the loudest, angriest person in the room.
Unless we show them something different.
Reclaiming the Space
That space between disagreement and warfare? It's not gone forever. It's just waiting for someone to reclaim it.
We have the technology to amplify our voices to the ends of the earth. But we're losing the ability to hear the person standing right next to us.
You don't have to keep living at maximum volume.
You can pause for five minutes in your driveway.
You can replace "but" with "and."
You can ask what someone's worried about instead of what they're demanding.
You can show up to meetings as a reasonable voice instead of leaving decisions to the angry minority.
You can become a thermostat.
Not by shouting louder than everyone else. By refusing to reflect the temperature of the room and instead, setting the one you want to live in.
No one is born with all the tools for this level of engagement. Most of us are trained to react, not regulate. But the only way to change the temperature is to stop reflecting it.
Turn down the noise.
Tune out the manufactured outrage.
Tune in to the people who share your streets.
They're probably not as angry as the internet thinks they are. And they're definitely waiting for someone to finally lower the volume so they can be heard.
Be the person who shows up to that city council meeting with twelve people. Be the thirteenth. Be the voice that doesn't yell or condemn. Be the one bringing solutions.
The reasonable people are tired of staying home.
It's long past time to start showing up.