Having lately been encumbered – unexpectedly and remorsefully  – by the notional necessities of a credit card, a PIN number, Face-ID and its associated Cloud-based imperatives, we’ve commensurately endured the unwelcome interference of time limits, geographical distinctions, passwords and current balance. The once proximate fencing of primary limitation has translated to an expression of universal abhorrence. Suddenly the breadth of the storm is incalculable! The disabling conformity screams, “You can’t get there from here!”

Every step of the last two days has transformed into an obstacle to be overcome. Sadly the diminution is aligned with our dear neighbours south of the 49th parallel (though the true collateral is merely unwavering commercial boundaries). What the obfuscation more purely reflects – albeit paradoxically – is our dissatisfaction at having walked-back our former sinewy financial models within the United States of America. I speak of our erstwhile 180-day sojourns there. It was incontrovertibly a time when we daringly approached the theatre of dual citizenship – yet without the mandate or limitation of compromise on either side of the fence.

The transformation was a combination of things: COVID started it all; then followed the political noise which has since become its own spectacle of rant and demonstrations. And finally enmeshed within it all is the latest roar called nationalism. Nationalism – though you may think otherwise – is not a nice word. Its predominance is controversial and divisional. There is nothing about it that encourages cooperation and sharing.

nationalism
1 separatism, secessionism, partitionism, isolationism; sectarianism.
ANTONYMS unionism, federalism.
2 the resurgence of nationalism in Europe and in other parts of the world.
3 chauvinism, jingoism, flag-waving; ethnocentrism, ethnocentricity.
4 identification with one’s own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.