Get Your Motor Running

The road looks clearer than it has in over ten years.

But don’t kick back and cruise yet. The open road calls for us to pay attention.

There is a feeling that comes when the road opens up in front of you.

You have been grinding through traffic. Stop and go. Construction zones. Detours that added miles and time and patience you weren’t sure you had left. And then suddenly the lanes clear. The horizon shows up. The engine finds its rhythm. And something in your chest loosens just enough to let you breathe.

That is where a lot of Americans are sitting this morning.

Eight to nine million people took to the streets last Saturday. The largest single day of protest in American history. All 50 states. Rural towns. Red state capitals. Suburbs that have been quiet for years. Something moved. Something real. And people who have been waiting a long time to feel it are letting themselves feel it now.

Good. Feel it. You earned it.

But this is the part where the old man in the passenger seat leans over and says something you need to hear.

The open road is not the safe road. The open road has its own hazards. Different from the gridlock you just came through but just as capable of putting you in a ditch if you stop paying attention. And the worst time to stop paying attention is exactly when things start feeling better.

So before you put your foot down and let it run, here are the signs you need to read.

Watch For Falling Rocks.

You know the sign. The one on the mountain highway with the little rocks tumbling down toward a tiny car. It means danger coming from above. Without warning. Without pattern. Without mercy.

In the current political environment falling rocks look like lies. Like gaslighting. Like a narrative that shifts overnight and leaves you questioning what you saw with your own eyes. You watched nine million people in the streets. You felt it. You know what it was. And within 48 hours someone with a microphone and a title will tell you it was nothing. Fringe. Manufactured. Paid for by shadowy forces. A therapy session for the deranged.

They will say it with confidence. They will repeat it until it starts to sound like it might be true. That is how gaslighting works. It does not persuade you all at once. It wears you down one drip at a time until you start doubting the evidence of your own experience.

The falling rocks don’t announce themselves. They come down fast and they land hard and if you are not watching the ridge line you will not see them coming.

Watch the ridge line. Trust what you saw. Nine million people do not hallucinate on the same day.

Watch For Running Deer.

Different hazard. Different kind of danger.

The deer doesn’t come from above. It comes from the side. Fast. Unpredictable. It looks harmless right up until the moment it is in your lane and you have swerved off the road trying to avoid it or trying to follow it and now you are in the ditch wondering how you got there.

In this season the running deer is the media cycle. The distraction. The outrage of the day that pulls every eye and every conversation away from what actually matters. It is the shiny thing. The dramatic thing. The thing that gets everyone talking and typing and sharing — and accomplishes nothing except burning the energy that should have been pointed somewhere useful.

The protest energy from last Saturday is real. But energy without direction is just noise. And the media is very good at taking real energy and redirecting it into content that serves the media and leaves the movement spinning in place.

Ask yourself before you chase any story this week — is this a falling rock trying to knock me off the road, or is this a running deer pulling me off the road. Either way the road is where you need to be.

Stay in your lane. Keep your hands on the wheel. Let the deer run.

Watch For Low Bridge.

This is the one people miss most often.

There is a clearance on every bridge. A measurement. A limit. How much can you carry and still get through clean. Too much load and you clip the bridge and the whole thing shifts and suddenly you are stopped in the middle of the road blocking everyone behind you.

Hope is the load you are carrying right now. And hope is a good load. Necessary load. The kind that makes the journey worth taking. But there is a clearance on it.

Too much hope too fast becomes expectation. And expectation in politics is a dangerous cargo. Because politics does not deliver on schedule. It does not follow the emotional arc you have mapped out. It moves in its own time, at its own pace, with reversals and setbacks that will feel like betrayal if your hope is loaded too high.

The people who burned out between 2016 and now — a lot of them were carrying loads too high for the bridges ahead. Every setback felt catastrophic because they had loaded the hope past the clearance line. And when it clipped they stopped driving altogether.

Know your clearance. Carry enough hope to keep moving. Not so much that one bad week puts you on the side of the road.

The bridge is passable. Millions of people just proved that. But measure your load. Check your clearance. And keep moving.

The road is real. The opening is real. What happened last Saturday was real and it matters and it is going to matter more in the weeks ahead when eleven states hold primaries and the energy in those streets has to find its way into voting booths.

But the open road demands more from a driver than the gridlock does. In the gridlock you just inch forward. On the open road you have to read the signs. Watch the ridge. Stay in your lane. Know your load.

Get your motor running.

The horizon is out there. It has been a long time coming. And the only way you lose it now is if you stop paying attention at exactly the moment the road opens up.

Eyes open. Hands steady. Keep driving.

“AI Baseline Governance”

“Intelligent People Assume Nothing” | Michael S Faust Sr. | Substack