by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | May 09, 2020

If someone has never experienced something, how do you communicate this something to them using language?  This is a real struggle for me.  When you become a father for the first time, or the first time your child calls you “Daddy”, there are just no words to describe this feeling.  Over the years, I have mused at my younger, single coworkers who were childless only to get married and become a father. I muse because their life is about to change profoundly and forever in ways they can never imagine.

Now, the only reason I bring up the father example above is to prove my point to those who can understand — to broach the next topic– and that topic is a sense of privacy, and a sense of freedom all wrapped up in one emotion. Like the father example, there is no way to explain this human condition until you have experienced it, but I will try. Why? Because this is the flavor we have lost and subject we are in the process of losing forever.

I was raised in the dusty desert of West Texas which is sparsely populated with few if any real areas of concentrated people.  I was raised in what I call Big Sky country, where most of what I had was not  trees, buildings or people but sky.  When and if we had rain, it was a big event and it was wonderful and soulful renewing and healing of the dry, cracked earth. The big dark grey and purple clouds full of moisture would march across the desert from horizon to horizon in all their beauty and glory spreading cool, moist air that would make the hairs on my arms and neck stand end-wise.  I felt a sense of health, well-being and joy.

I had horses and in the areas I frequented, there were few if any telephone poles or fences… it was just wide open spaces as far as I could see; and with this vast expanse of openness and sky, I had a sense of privacy and of freedom.  I knew of people who had screwed up their lives so badly,  they moved far away to the Northwest US to start over and rebuild their broken reputation … Starting anew and fresh — a second chance.

So today, with our newly minted surveillance state, none of this is possible. There is no sense of privacy and there is no ability to start over with a second chance. And the feeling of privacy and freedom is gone. Future generations will have not a single clue of what they are missing.

Wyman Meinzer’s West Texas