​No Strings Attached

By John Strand

jas@hpr1.com

One description that perhaps aptly describes the mental state of many lately is that they feel they are attached to a string. Or several strings.

Call it the notion that people are played like puppets, the sensation of a pulling on one’s own lifeline — and the knowledge that others are similarly situated. Everywhere you turn, vast numbers are bobbing up or down according to the tugs on their strings.

This is not an ordinary or customary historical experience here in this free zone called America. Certainly we know group action well, especially elections whereby majorities decide. We know that cultural routine. We accept it. We are lucky to have it.

But this is different now. More personal. More concerning. And more dangerous.

Individual sovereignty is a foundation of America — or at least has been — and, at a minimum, an aspiration worth aiming for.

Not all are so comforted today that they are safe and secure. Not all know the rest of us will have their backs. Or even care. Or stand up. There is now an undercurrent of fear that people will start tattling on each other, divulging the secrets of their neighbors.

The word “kapos” comes to mind. They were prisoners in Nazi concentration camps who were appointed by the SS to supervise other inmates, often in work details.

It is not that you are enslaved or free, one or the other. There are states between the two, involuntary servitudes.

There is little doubt that American society will constantly evolve. As it should. And it goes without saying there will be ups and downs. Of course.

However, whenever the underlying premise of protecting individual sovereignty is eroding, we had better take heed. If it happens to others, it’s only a matter of time before it happens to us. If it’s happening already, we cannot be in denial.

Tumult reigns. “Antidisestablishmentarianism,” remember that word? Save that we are not talking Old England but Trump Era USA. And the movement afoot in many ways borders on religion. Some call it a cult. The refutation is that anyone who says such a thing suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

A good thing to do during the day is to simply stop and assess where we are with things going on around us. Who’s deciding what? What do we actually want? And what do we see, and not see? Are there strings and who is pulling them?

Fear underlies much. And that’s the counter to hope, we remind you. If upon personal assessment you see strings, ask yourself if they are of your own making. Are they puppet strings? And are they simpatico to your core self?

Further assess if they are part and parcel of something you’d consider good. Is it a connection based on love and truth? Does it bring others to you or draw them away? That is, of course, if we take a moment to assess the state of our own life bubble, so to speak. Personal discernment is always a noble goal.

After that personal journey it behooves us to take a look at the circumstances of those around us. How are they doing? Are they okay? Are they living in abundance or are they lacking basics like food and shelter? Do they have fear in their eyes? Are they at risk in ways heretofore not much experienced in modern-day America?

There’s a flurry of negativity everywhere lately. When possible, we need not make a home for it in our own life spheres.

The past is always the past and it’s easy to be armchair quarterbacks and, with the benefit of hindsight, see clearly how everything went down. The future is as elusive as the past is quantifiable. In the middle, where the two meet, is the here and now, the moment we exist in.. That’s us. That’s ours. That’s not anybody else’s. It just is. No strings attached.