So why is it that so little of the discussion about illegal immigration focused at all on why people are actually immigrating here? Part of the reason may be simply the presumption of awareness and the belief in irrelevance: “everyone already knows why, what matters is what we do about it”.    A more cynical observer might belief that it is a cultural arrogance. We think of COURSE people want to move to the US, we’re so great, anyone in their right mind would want to move here. Under that model, we might understand ourselves as really not wanting to discuss that which causes large population migrations because secretly we want people to want to move here. We don’t mind being the nation in demand. We just want to be the nation in demand that only the elite few are privelged to be able to live in. If we actually understood all of the factors that governed immigration it would cut into our world view, as we’d start to understand that maybe America isn’t all that great  and at the same time we’d be forced to look upon and acknowledge truths about other parts of the world that we usually ignore, some of which we might guiltily realize are in our power to correct.

But never mind that. It’s not hard to perceive an ideal future where borders dissolve and people can choose to live where they please. The free market would then fully drive choices of life style and living conditions and would ultimately, if left alone and unabused, yield the optimal population distribution in livable areas. Further it would be flexible and adjust to changing times, shifts in ecnomic structures, natural disasters, new inventions, and the likes. Put mind numblingly simply, if people were allowed to live where they wanted to live, they’d actually live where they’d want to live.

Security is always the argument of the fearful of the past against the advent of the future. So we ignore those arguments. It suffices to say that the consquences of closed borders historically have been far more dire than the consequences of free movement between nations. Free exchange of people, ideas, and goods tends to lead to more open understanding of one another and less conflict.

More on this later.

They say that you are judged not on your beliefs but on your actions. Today I learned otherwise. In the real world you can be condemned for an act you didn’t commit or because you didn’t prevent others from commiting that same act. Truthfully, we should be honest and admit that we really condemn for a matter of practicality rather than reason  We lock up or kill the cold blooded unremorseful murderer less because of the pople he murdered and more because of his desire and intention to do murder again if the option is available.

Perhaps another way to look at it is to say that we judge another not based on what we perceive to be their beliefs or their actions or even their intentions but on the basis of their CHOICES. Choose to believe something evil and be unyielding in your belief and you will be judged just as badly as someone who chooses to do something evil. Every choice you make has consequence. Society must ensure that recognized choices are scaled on the order of acceptability, the highly acceptable praised and the unacceptable punished with punishments ranging from social stigma to capital punishment.  That is how society functions. At least today.

Is there a better way? I do not know really. But certainly systems that more precisely adhere to what they advertise as their system of justice would be more attractive to me. Every citizen should have enough information to be able to make the choices that lead them to the state of judgement that they desire. If one day you say “thinking about  and boasting about and even striving to commit an evil act does not warrant the same punishment as actually commiting the evil act”, you can’t then say ” but in this particular situation what you were boasting about intending to do and striving  to do was SO evil and SO despicable that we’ll just treat you as if you’d done it.”  That’s unjust unless you give everyone the exact means to determine whether a particular act they are contemplating falls into that ‘too evil’ category. Justice isn’t about catching people with their pants down and laughing at them as they get punished. It’s about creating principles under which individuals can make rational decisions about how they should like to live their lives. As such you can use any standard of justice however absurd so long as it is consistent and can be understood.

I still… no I have ALWAYS dreamed of isolation. The same way others dream of glory and respect or quant happy homes raising children and continuing their chain of existence. I dream of being lost in my own thoughts surrounded by nothing and no one, building nothing but that house of logical cards trapped up inside my head that to me represent what is known about reality.

The dreams only go stronger these days. I have wished for it, wanted it, craved it. To be alone is a kind of bliss in my mind. An unmatched freedom that brings peace like nothing else can. It is my vision of utopia. To be free of attachments and explanations. To never have to wonder what someone is thinking or wondering, what they are trying to do or whether they will succeed or fail, hate you or love you, be your friend or your enemy, understand or mearly shake their heads in confusion. To never know or care whether someone thinks you are a regular guy, an intelligent, wise, and just person, or a waste of space.

It is a conceit really. There is no rational reason to believe that I would be any happier or that I could accomplish any more by myself. (But in my dreams I always am and I always do.) Most evidence indeed seems to indicate to the contrary. How often do you hear during those motivation speaches about how so and so couldn’t have done it without help from so many many other people? How rarely does anyone get up and claim that they have no one to thank for their accomplishments, no one in particular who played a large roll and that they were most certainly better off for having not confided in any one or joined forces with any one. No one says “I’m so happy I decided to do it on my own, to ask for help would have been a HUGE mistake.” No. People always seem to do better when they put some degree of trust in others and somehow are able to ride the collective to happiness.

Reality is against that idea. Society trends more and more toward collective accomplishment. Large engines exist, machines of social order that request and demand obedience of the collective. That does not mean individual accomplishment is not recognized or desired. Far from it, but big things are done by big groups and individuals are praised only in the context of the collective. Your accomplishments are OUR accomplsihments the collective cries. We are proud that you are one of US.

This is good right? People working together for their greater good whatever they believe that good to be, whether it be worldwide peace or unity or ending hunger, curing disease, improving society, bringing people to other planets, creating entertainment for the masses, living together happily, or just plain making a lot of money.  This is why we encourage friendships and family. This is why we rely upon connections and networking. We don’t just do it because it works, we do it because we believe it is right and good. Far better than the selfish alternative of indivdiuals looking out only for their own ends and striving for their own independent greatness.

If I understand that, and I believe that I truly do, why then do I still dream of isolation. Why do I need it? I cannot understand nor constitute the thought of not living alone. The idea that someone might ask me what I will do or wonder at how I am feeling or what would make my life better frequently makes me shudder. To this day I feel annoyed every single time someone asks me such a simple question as “what are your plans for today?” It drives me mad. What do you care? I want to say but can’t. Why should it matter to you? What if my plans don’t entail you? What if my plans were, first and foremost not to encounter you or any living thing and just to be at peace alone in my inner thoughts or experience whatever empty joys I can find whereever I please? 

It is a reflective selfishness, clearly a kind of undiagnosed mental disorder or trauma perhaps? I cannot, for some reason, accept my triumphs and failures as my own insofar as there are others around me taking any part in my daily life. And that is a lack of freedom that makes me feel caged, imprisoned by interaction. Bound by expectations and uncertainties I can do nothing that does not fulfill or fail to measure up to the will of another. Why can’t I just choose on my own? Why must it all be wrapped up in layers upon layers of complexity shattering the simplest of individual wants and needs into a million little splinters.

And then there’s the fear. Fear running far counter to my wishes, battling with my desire in my heart and my head and more than often winning.

Rational fear. Collective brings protections against fate and happenstance that cannot be gained alone. (who will take you to a hospital if you are sick? Who will fight beside you when the invaders try to kill you in your home) Collective gives you knowledge to avoid the mistakes of the past. (who will tell you the stories that teach you what to do in a situation you have never know? who will suggest to you an avenue of study from whence you can derive a new true.)

Irrational fear. The darkness hides the beasts and the shadows that hint at realites far beyond what are experience enable us to comprehend. (who will I go to when I need confirmation that I am not the only being in the universe? who will look upon me and acknowledge me and confirm that I am still really here and have not faded into the night?) The darkness hides the truth and leaves me terrified of unending ignorance. (who will turn on the lights to reveal the shapes in the night as coat hangers and door knobs? who will share their unknowing with me and thus turn great engulfing sufficating mysteries into tiny shared uncertainties that can be shrugged off with the dawn?)

Fear that transcends rationality. Always there’s that. One day all the people loved and respectived turn from you saying “what is the purpose of knowing you? You who do not interact with us! You have done naught for us to make thee worthy of our consideration. You live upon this world as naught but a needy illusion claiming attention upon your own time and then giving nothing in return! After some time of trying to help you and understand you, we give up. We’ve had enough! We simply choose not to know you. Not to care for you as you do not care for us and ignore your wishes and whims as the fanciful nothings as they are. Let you persist on the outskirts of human existence as you wish for you mean nothing. Now we know that you are not a being to be trusted or relied upon. We know that you will never amount to anything and are only dragging us down by even taking the time to interact with you. We don’t care if the memory of your memory fades from this world ignored and forgotten. We will be happier for having never known you.”

What is independence? What does it mean to be free? Where does the line get drawn between being alone and being unknown? Increasingly we live in a world where we send words and ideas out through a void and hope they get picked up and remembered by beings who are about as real to us as mist and yet we call that a new and advanced form of social interaction. Increasingly we live in a world where unreal things forge the bulk of our entertainments and pretense and lies surround the heart of what we consider to be real.

I do not understand these things. I never have. But I know what I need. To be left alone. And I know what I fear. To be left alone. I only hope that one day I can find that degree of isolation that I can call peace.