Have you ever said aloud whatever comes to mind? If you have, I hope you were alone. Giving voice to your stream of consciousness might interest a psychiatrist or entertain your family and friends. But I suspect you would find it personally embarrassing. Fortunately, most of us do not talk to ourselves and consciously filter out whatever might cloud our focus. This internal audit is the result of reflection, sometimes practiced automatically and sometimes with a good deal of effort. In this manner, we avoid being scatter brained so that we can function and fulfill our life goals. Unfortunately, we cannot always avoid external distractions. These can be obstacles both to clear thinking and to achievement of personal goals. I am not referring here to those natural impediments to human progress that bedeviled our distant ancestors. They had less means to protect them from harsh weather, to travel far from home, to care for their sick and disabled, to secure their comfort and safety, to communicate with each other over vast distances, and so on. Today, we face obstacles from the very environment we initially created to overcome those past impediments.

We live in an age that is transforming almost beyond our control: technology commands much of our time and daily activities; global and national economic systems define the extent of our material wealth and physical wellbeing; and politics determine our governance and security, often unpredictably and undemocratically. We awake to alarms and march to predetermined schedules; we communicate more in hurried calls and short texts but less in substance, depriving us of that deeper understanding gained from different perspectives and more authentic relationships; we obey rules and laws we have no time to question; we spend a significant portion of our lives apart from those we love; and we are constrained to live and prosper within the opportunity boundaries set by circumstances over which we have very little control. Has our modern world provided us with more comfort, security, freedom and opportunity than in the past? Most would answer affirmatively. But I question whether we are not unlike the poor soul caught talking to him/her self. Our focus is scattered; and our lives to some extent predetermined. The larger context in which we choose lifestyle, job, or status is less ours than the result of forces over which we have little control. We are losing that singular focus that is both defining and defined by our uniqueness and that allows for our personal imprint on everybody and everything we encounter. If my thesis seems a bit farfetched, consider the following:

➣ Our jobs are increasingly managed by computer systems that not only control robotic assembly lines but our performance and interface with associates in the workplace. I know this fact because I participated in the design of many systems that automated what used to be wholly human systems. The people in those human systems now work in and for more efficient programmed systems. (I admit they are still human systems in their origin, but far less personal and more uniformly regulated.)
➣ The free enterprise economy of early 19th century America no longer exists. Replacing most craftsmen, apprentices, small businesses and farms, we now have corporate enterprise, agribusiness, an international financial industry, and a global economy. Most of us do not own or control what we produce. We earn what the corporate bottom line allots to our individual workplace contribution or monetary investment. Since World War II, more and more workers depend upon the largess of a relatively small number of corporations that have grown into international behemoths. A significant number of these enterprises hire cheaper, even subsistence, foreign workers and store hundreds of billions of dollars overseas while funding their operations with tax deductible loans in order to secure greater profits. Not only their workers but tax paying citizens can effectively become victims of their corporate greed.
➣ The intersection of money and politics has limited the will and personal goals of citizens in many areas of common interests whether you consider health, safety, property ownership, education, access to natural resources, or even self-government.

Let me elaborate on this last point. Health care, for example, was not made more available without first securing the profits of health insurance companies, that unproductive middle entity that secures profits for itself at the expense of patients and medical professionals. Even at this writing, another judicial challenge to the Affordable Care Act has been waged on the basis that the insurance industry has not been adequately reimbursed by the Federal Government. (Apparently, tax credits do not suffice in place of cash on hand.) Another example is gun safety. Background checks on gun purchasers have been blocked in Congress because gun manufacturers—not gun owners—control the most powerful lobby in Washington. That lobby has also blocked the manufacture of safer guns that could not be accidentally fired, for instance, by children. One more example is State governments’ use of eminent domain. Citizens have been disowned of their property at the behest of large corporations. In like fashion, our Congress recently allowed crude oil to be exported, not only to enhance the profits of energy corporations but to provide them the export protection of international trade agreements. As a result it is more difficult for the Federal government to slow down or regulate the damage done by energy extraction companies on air, water and land. Money politics has even affected the education we all want for our children. From the high costs of textbook publishers’ monopoly to the prohibition against student loan bankruptcy, from exclusion of merit pay for teachers to ever diminishing investments in public colleges, legislatures across the country demean the value of education in lieu of private profit and other budget priorities. But, worse, money has corrupted our politics at its core, that is, in our electoral system. Political Action Committees, billionaire funding of political organizations (with misleading names), and various campaign scams have all been made legal by a very compliant Congress. One Presidential candidate, for example, has borrowed between 36 and 50 million dollars to win his Party’s nomination. It would be perfectly legal if he demanded repayment of this loan from his Party. He would simply be leveraging the purchase of the highest office in the land with borrowed money, a common practice in his real estate development business. He may yet not demand repayment because he promised voters his campaign would be self-financed. But if he does, he would be executing the greatest legalized con ever. Does a political system that allows this type of chicanery represent the will of its citizens? In fact, it is just another example of a system out of control, in this case a political system unfit for the body politic.

I wrote “When Education is Not Education” to specifically address how our schools might better develop the potential of our children and prepare them to flourish in a world they will create. I wrote “The Clash of Minorities” and “American Revolution 2016” to expose the economic and political detour America seemed to be taking from its founding principles and, further, to propose a possible blueprint for its restoration. The technology, economy, and politics we have inherited—and in part we continue to create and serve –may now pose as our greatest challenge. It may seem easier to focus on our respective jobs and personal responsibilities than to digest the significance of the noise around us. It may seem quite reasonable to ignore a public discourse drowning in a broadcast media dead pool like an unwieldy stream of consciousness wallowing in scandals, mayhem, word games, sound bites, talking points, and senseless passions. But this unruly noise is only irrelevant to our daily lives until that moment of realization when we become irrelevant to it. We must bend back the arc of history, which is the core meaning of the word “reflection” (from re, “back,” and flectere, “to bend”). Let us reevaluate and redirect the path we are on, before we lose our way.

Now is the time to regain clarity as citizens: to discover our personal truth, to pursue its purest expression in our lives, and to find a meaningful and nurturing role in our human community. The latter requires us to voice our concerns and vote our interests. If the chatter in our heads is further confounded by the chatter in our environment, we must make the effort to refocus on what really matters. This truly is a time for reflection.