Freedom

Dad… You said “America is still the freest country in the world.”

But Dad…

When other countries have affordable healthcare systems and free college education, am I really free if I am drowning in debt just because my country raised me to believe the only way I could get out of poverty was to go to College? If my only choices are to drown in medical debt or die?

Am I really free if I have no rights to my own body? They are making a dead woman incubate a baby, dad. They are forcing her family to watch, dad. Is that freedom? What if it was me, dad?

Dad, my country told me I could have freedom of speech, but now they are criminalizing, deporting, and imprisoning people for protesting a genocide. Have you seen all of my posts protesting genocide, dad? Did you know I’ve gone to peaceful protests? Am I really free to do that?

Dad- they are deporting US citizens. They are deporting the Hispanic workers who work with you. They are deporting sick children…

Dad, they are making it harder to get divorced… Do you remember how your dad hit your mom? I remember watching other men hit my mom… What if my husband hit me, dad? What if we had kids? Do I really have the freedom to be safe dad?

I have ADHD, Dad…. They want to put people like me on a list. They are talking about wellness farms. What does that mean, dad?

They are interrogating people as they cross the Canadian border, in ways they have never done before. Why are they doing that dad? It’s my constitutional right to travel as I please. What is happening dad?

Daddy… what does freedom mean? Daddy I am so scared. Daddy, I just want to protect my body. Daddy I just want to be able to afford to live and to serve my community. Daddy I just want to be free to share my thoughts and beliefs. Daddy I just want to be safe.

Daddy, I am the poster board picture of an American girl. Blonde hair, light eyed, all American pie… But, Daddy, even I don’t know what freedom is anymore.

So please, Daddy, tell me what freedom looks like from where you stand. And don’t forget to look down at your little girl and remember how much you say you love her, when your privilege as a white man sets you so far above her that you can’t even reach out and hold her little hand anymore…

Lately I have been pushing myself to venture outside of my comfort zone. It can be difficult at times and it was scary at first, but I have made so many wonderful memories because of my newly found mental freedom. The other day I was sporting my "Attack on Titan" t-shirt with the "Wings of Freedom" on it. I was looking at my shirt in the mirror and I was just thinking about how if the people in the scout regiment never pushed themselves outside of their comfort zones, then they would most likely die inside a bricked off town-and wouldn't it feel so much better to die trying to make a better life for yourself then to die in hiding?

Freedom.... a word that describes a state of being that most humans long for. It's like free fall, when you're just floating along with nothing in your way. However, humans are all bound by, if nothing else, themselves. They tie themselves and each other to standards, to obligations, etc. We're bound to our bills, our work, to people, and more. We have to depend on the fact that for travel, we have to get gas, or a ticket on a plane, train, boat, etc. You have to have a passport to get out of/into a country that isn't your own and then to return. So, how can a human be completely free? Freedom is a matter of the state of being. Meditation, for me, is freedom.

Humans have an amazing ability to gain freedom, and then fuck it up again.

It's truly astounding.

I don't think I ever could be free knowing it was my choice to be there.

The idea that it was my choice, and that my peace of mind could come at the expense of someone else weighs on me more than any amount of work to hold a failing something together ever would. It is in my nature to fix broken things. My worst fear is to be the breaker.

For the first time since I was 12, I know what freedom is.

Thank you.

If someone wants you to trade some freedoms for others, set them on fire.

:sigh:

Idle hands are the devils playthings. Skilled idle hands are the devils workhorse.

Freedom is knowing that you can quit the game at any time. Really knowing it. And being comfortable with the option.

One of my worst fears (perhaps THE worst) is that circumstances will come about in my life that will keep me from this option, like having people truly depend on me (children or lovers, for instance) or being in jail where it's damned near impossible.

Oddly, the more freedom I have to leave, the less I want to use it. Only when I start to feel restricted do I want to exercise my freedom and just fade away.

I'll prove that I am a slave to nothing.

I take freedom as being at the heart of everything, the soul of meaning. It's an abused word, prostituted by every cheap huckster and pathetic pimp in the world, but it has meaning nonetheless.

I've long sidestepped the question of free will for this reason. Philosophers have masturbated for years on the subject, looking for the truth- free will or determinism? To my mind, the answer is simple. If we choose determinism, then we've invalidated the whole of philosophy, with the possible exception of metaphysics- if we don't freely choose the actions we take, then nothing we do means anything.

I choose free will- the truth of it is irrelevant. Only freedom has meaning.