Paying For Public Legitimacy

I'm curious about whether I'm the only one in the world who notices this, so I'll just put it out here on my blog. But over the years, I've come to an unsettling conclusion. If I am out in public, and not actually travelling about, then I need to be somewhere in the act of spending money (or at least presenting the appearance of intending to spend money)! Now if I am at home, then that's all right. But other than being at a public library, I feel that the idea has been hammered into me that I am something less than human if I am not paying for the "privilege" of making myself visible in the public. Does that sound a bit farfetched to you? One of the things that police look for on their patrols are people who don't seem to be doing anything in particular (translate: either not spending money or not moving). This is commonly known as "loitering", and the "offenders" are often referred to as vagrants and either told to move on or are thrown in jail (remember Sylvester Stallone's Rambo character in that small Oregon town in his First Blood movie?). If I am sitting in a Starbucks as a paying customer, then that's supposedly legitimate. But just sitting out somewhere doing the same thing, but not shelling out money, is liable to get some bad reactions from people. Now it's possible to spend a good deal of time in public without handing over money to others. But it has to be done furtively, with masked intentions. So I could window-shop, or browse around stores without ever making purchases. Or sit in a parking lot in my car without getting out. But even with these scenarios, I could come under scrutiny and suspicion for illegitimate behavior.

Just what is it that I'm asking, anyway? Only that I can truly feel like a free human being to the point that my presence anywhere (in public) is legitimate and doesn't depend on what others choose to discern about my intentions or whether I have "bought" a legitimate spot out in public.

Many years ago, the late great science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke wrote a famous short story titled Pedestrian, where he took my premise to its logical extreme and depicted a future society where just going out to take a walk is viewed as aberrant behavior worthy of incarceration. So I'm not the only one who's discerned this developing social phenomenon. And by all accounts, it's gotten progressively worse over the past few years! What I fear is that we are, like sheep, allowing ourselves to submissively be herded into a police state.

Well, I for one don't want to live in such a society, so I'm going to do something about it. Each week, I am going to make a major effort to spend time out in public, not spending money or doing something like jogging or dog-walking. No, I'll just go to a park and do my studying there with some fresh-brewed coffee from home! At least doing this should help to dispel a little of the creeping paranoia that I'm beginning to feel about this society becoming more oppressive. But even here, I'm still paying up (through my taxes, supporting the city park)!