Dear Government: I Feel Free And It's Making Me Nervous

The Letter

Dear Government,

Something happened to me last Saturday that I can’t explain, and frankly, it has me shaken to my core.

I woke up at 7:00 AM. The sun was shining. I got dressed, walked out my front door, and — I don’t know how else to describe this — I felt free.

I know how that sounds. Please don’t flag my file.

It started small. I walked to the end of my driveway without checking if walking was still legal. I didn’t consult any regulations. I didn’t look up whether my shoes were OSHA-compliant for residential sidewalk use. I just… walked. Like an animal. Like someone who doesn’t know they live in a society.

Then it got worse. I decided to go to the park. I didn’t file a Recreational Outing Notice. I didn’t check the park’s current occupancy status on the Municipal Recreation Portal. I just went. And when I got there, I sat on a bench — without verifying that the bench had been inspected this quarter — and I watched the ducks.

And I felt… joy. Unregulated, unsupervised, government-unaffiliated joy. For approximately 11 minutes, I felt like a free person in a free country, accountable to no one, beholden to nothing, just existing.

Then the panic set in.

Because if I felt free, that must mean the government wasn’t watching. And if the government wasn’t watching, that means something is wrong. Either with me, or with the government, or with the surveillance cameras in the park, which now that I think about it, did seem to be pointing in the wrong direction.

I need reassurance. Is the government still there? Is it still watching me? Did I fall through some kind of regulatory crack? Am I alone?

Please respond quickly. I haven’t felt comfortable going outside since.

Anxiously, Unmonitored in Urbana

The Response

Dear Unmonitored in Urbana,

Oh, sweetheart. Come here. Sit down. Let me wrap you in the warm, heavy blanket of bureaucratic reassurance.

The government is still watching you. I promise. What you experienced last Saturday was not a lapse in government oversight. It was not a gap in surveillance. And it absolutely does not mean you have been abandoned by the regulatory apparatus that keeps you safe, supervised, and appropriately anxious at all times.

What you experienced has a name. It’s called Freedom Anxiety Disorder (FAD), and it affects approximately 23 million Americans each year — or at least it would, if the government weren’t doing such an excellent job of making sure most citizens never feel free long enough to develop it.

Let me explain what happened, why it happened, and how we can make sure it never happens again.

What Is Freedom Anxiety Disorder?

FAD occurs when a citizen experiences an unexpected and prolonged sensation of personal liberty. Symptoms include:

Making decisions without consulting regulations
Walking in public without awareness of legal requirements
Experiencing joy not attributable to a government program
Sitting on park benches without reviewing inspection certificates
Feeling “light,” “unburdened,” or “like a person”
A temporary inability to remember which of your daily activities require permits

FAD is caused by what the Bureau of Citizen Supervision (BCS) calls a “regulatory gap” — a brief moment in which the citizen’s awareness of government oversight drops below the minimum recommended level. Think of it like losing your cell signal, except instead of missing a phone call, you miss the comforting awareness that everything you do is being monitored, catalogued, and potentially subject to a fine.

Dr. Norman Nanny, Chief Behavioral Scientist at the BCS, describes it this way:

“The modern citizen is like a goldfish in a bowl. The bowl is government. The water is regulation. The little plastic castle is the Department of Housing and Urban Development. When everything is working correctly, the goldfish doesn’t even notice the bowl — it just swims around, blissfully unaware of the structure containing it. FAD occurs when the goldfish suddenly becomes aware that it’s in a bowl, and then, for a horrifying moment, wonders what it would be like to be in the ocean. The answer, of course, is that the ocean is terrifying and full of sharks, which is why we have the bowl.”

What Happened Last Saturday

Let me reconstruct the events of your Saturday and explain the regulatory context you missed.

7:00 AM: You woke up. This is normal. The government does not yet regulate waking times for private citizens, though the Bureau of Circadian Compliance has submitted a proposal for standardized wake-up schedules that is currently under review. Your alarm clock, however, was almost certainly subject to FCC regulations regarding radio frequency emissions, so rest assured: the government was with you from the moment you opened your eyes.

7:15 AM (approx): You walked to the end of your driveway. You say you didn’t check whether walking was still legal. I understand why this felt reckless, but let me reassure you: walking is still legal. However, the sidewalk you walked on was built to government specifications, the shoes you wore were manufactured according to Consumer Product Safety Commission standards, and the air you breathed was (theoretically) regulated by the EPA. You were not unsupervised. You just didn’t notice the supervision. That’s actually the ideal state — we call it “ambient compliance.”

7:30 AM (approx): You went to the park. Again, you didn’t file a Recreational Outing Notice, but the park itself is a government property, maintained by government employees, governed by municipal park ordinances, and surveilled by government cameras. The moment you entered that park, you were as surrounded by government as a hot dog at a Fourth of July picnic. The ducks, I should add, are also regulated — the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 makes them federal jurisdiction. You were literally watching federal birds on municipal property while walking on government-approved pathways. You were neck-deep in government. You just didn’t feel it.

7:30-7:41 AM: The 11 minutes of joy. This is where the FAD occurred. For 11 minutes, your conscious awareness of government oversight dropped to near zero, and your brain interpreted this as “freedom.” In reality, you were no more free than a goldfish whose bowl has been cleaned — the bowl was still there, you just couldn’t see the smudges.

Why You Felt Free (And Why That’s Actually Fine)

There are several explanations for your momentary sensation of freedom:

Theory 1: Surveillance Camera Rotation. You mentioned the park cameras seemed to be pointing in the wrong direction. This is possible. Park surveillance cameras rotate on a 15-minute cycle, and there is a known 3-minute gap in coverage during the rotation. Your 11 minutes of freedom may have coincided with a camera blind spot. The Bureau of Citizen Supervision has been informed and will adjust the rotation schedule. You’re welcome.

Theory 2: Regulatory Fatigue. It’s possible that your brain, exhausted from constant awareness of regulations, simply stopped noticing them for a few minutes, the way you stop noticing the hum of a refrigerator. The regulations were still there. You just went briefly “regulation-blind.” This is similar to how you stop noticing your own heartbeat — it’s always there, keeping you alive (or in this case, keeping you compliant), but sometimes you forget.

Theory 3: Saturday. Government offices are closed on Saturdays. While regulations are technically still in effect 24/7, the spiritual presence of government — that heavy, warm, slightly suffocating energy that radiates from an open government building — is significantly reduced on weekends. Many FAD episodes occur on Saturdays and Sundays for this reason. The BCS has recommended that government offices remain open seven days a week to reduce FAD incidence, but this proposal has been stalled by the Department of Labor, which regulates working hours. It’s a beautiful catch-22.

Treatment and Recovery

The good news is that FAD is highly treatable. Here are the recommended interventions:

Immediate Relief: Visit the DMV. I know you’ve heard this advice before, but there is simply no better antidote to feeling free than spending three hours at the Department of Motor Vehicles. The DMV is the government’s most concentrated expression of itself — the fluorescent lights, the numbered ticket system, the employees who process your request with the enthusiasm of a sloth navigating a tar pit. Within 20 minutes of entering a DMV, your freedom sensation will be completely replaced by the familiar comfort of government-managed helplessness.

“I prescribe DMV visits the way other doctors prescribe Xanax. Two hours in a DMV waiting room, and my patients stop talking about ‘freedom’ and start talking about ‘just wanting to go home.’ Which is exactly the emotional state a healthy citizen should be in.”

— Dr. Patricia Permit, BCS-certified Freedom Anxiety Specialist

Daily Maintenance: The Regulatory Awareness Checklist. Each morning, before leaving your house, review the following checklist to remind yourself of the government’s loving presence:

By the time you finish this checklist, you should feel thoroughly regulated and appropriately unfree. If you still feel free after completing it, add more items. There is no shortage of government involvement in your daily life; you just have to notice it.

Weekly Therapy: Bureaucratic Immersion Sessions. These sessions, offered at government compliance centers nationwide, involve sitting in a room while a government employee reads regulations aloud for 90 minutes. Topics rotate weekly and include: building permit requirements, IRS filing instructions, OSHA workplace ladder safety guidelines, and the complete text of the Affordable Care Act (this last one takes approximately 17 sessions to complete). Participants report feeling “deeply, irreversibly aware of government” after just one session.

Monthly Reinforcement: The Compliance Comfort Call. The Bureau of Citizen Supervision offers a monthly phone service where a government employee calls you, confirms that you are being monitored, and asks if you need anything. Most citizens find this deeply comforting. The call typically goes:

BCS Agent: “Hello, this is the Bureau of Citizen Supervision. We’re calling to confirm that we know where you are, what you’re doing, and approximately how much you earned last month. Is there anything we can help you with?”

Citizen: “No, I just needed to know you were there.”

BCS Agent: “We’re always here. We’re always watching. Have a compliant day.”

About the Ducks

You mentioned watching ducks during your 11 minutes of unauthorized freedom. I want to address this directly because duck-watching, while seemingly innocent, is actually one of the most heavily regulated recreational activities in America.

Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the ducks you observed are federal property. Watching them is permitted, but feeding them is regulated by municipal ordinance in most jurisdictions. Photographing them may require compliance with federal wildlife photography guidelines. And if any of those ducks were endangered ducks, simply being in their presence without a Federal Wildlife Proximity Permit (Form FWPP-12) is a violation carrying fines of up to $25,000.

So even during your most “free” moment — sitting on a bench watching ducks — you were surrounded by federal, state, and local regulations. You were as free as a man standing in a room made entirely of invisible walls. The walls were there. You just happened to not bump into any of them for 11 minutes.

In Closing

Unmonitored in Urbana, I want to leave you with this thought: you are never, ever alone. The government is with you when you wake up (building codes). It’s with you when you eat (food regulations). It’s with you when you drive (traffic laws). It’s with you when you work (labor laws). It’s with you when you sleep (noise ordinances). And it’s with you when you sit on a park bench watching ducks (migratory bird law, park ordinances, surveillance cameras, and property tax on the land beneath the bench).

That feeling of freedom you experienced? It was an illusion. A beautiful, terrifying, 11-minute illusion. Like a dream where you can fly — exhilarating in the moment, but ultimately not how the world works. In the real world, you can’t fly. In the real world, there are regulations about airspace.

Go back to the park, Unmonitored. Sit on that bench. Watch those federal ducks. But this time, bring a copy of your municipal park ordinance, and read it while you sit there. You’ll feel the warm, familiar weight of government settle back over you like a heavy coat you forgot you were wearing.

And that heavy coat? That’s not oppression. That’s a hug.

With the omnipresent warmth of a government that never leaves your side (even when you wish it would),

Becky Bureaucracy Senior Advisor, Dear Government Column Bureau of Citizen Supervision, Freedom Anxiety Division “You’re Never Alone. Literally. We Have Cameras.”