The pause that regresses

If this article doesn't give you pause about how out there things have gotten (or been for a while, perhaps since the end of World War II), I don't know what will.

I still have mixed feelings about Edward Snowden. I don't consider him a hero. Nor do I consider him a villain. Mainly I think he's more of a narcissist with dodgy judgment. IT professional/aspiring male model? Sorry, anybody that pulled in that much money doing what he did for so long and apparently gave some of it to the Ron Paul presidential campaign shouldn't be considered that credible.

But this article . . . with its revelations about turned off cell phones being used as listening devices, the "extraterritorial" detentions at international border crossings, the need to encrypt private communications and the increasing inability to do so, the geolocation, the concern over physical safety and the psychological pressure to cease and desist . . . . This is extraordinary.

Please read for yourself and be more aware than I have been these last few years. I won't say that I agree with everything stated, every conclusion reached. I have at least one friend who thinks that the destruction of the World Trade Center was a "false flag" event. I still think that and every conspiracy about the JFK assassination are just that, conspiracies. So no, not going there. Nevertheless, this article does open my consciousness and make me think more is possible than impossible in this world we've created in the name of national security.

* * *

I remember visiting the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s and was perplexed and amused by the fact that the government reportedly kept people busy by listening into hotel rooms, telephones, conversations, and more. I remember not being able to talk on the street in English in a private conversation with others around for fear of tipping off the secret police that a local was associating with a foreigner. I remember things being "forbidden" but "still possible."

But I didn't have to live in that. I could go home. First to Finland, then to Sweden, then to the U.S., feeling a great sense of relief when the plane took off from Moscow and landed in Helsinki. Feeling sad and lost for what I was leaving behind--the wonderful people, the personal connections--in the Soviet Union as I took the ferry from Helsinki to Stockholm. Feeling unwelcome, uninteresting, and alone in Stockholm. And, finally, feeling grateful to be home in Washington after nearly a month away.

Nearly thirty years later, I wonder if I ended up coming home to some form of the same weirdness, paranoia, and cruelty. With better consumer goods, true, but also somehow with a depressing lack of authenticity.

I expect more from us.

I'm not saying that I would have been happier staying in Leningrad in 1985. I think not. I don't think Sweden offers all the answers either, despite Twitter pressure to believe otherwise. However, once again, I find myself questioning whether we, the "West," have the answers and the happiness we tout and we seek.

What is this beautiful house? Where does that highway lead to? Am I right? Am I wrong? My god, what have we done?