What is Freedom?
Is it the absence of constraints?
Is it the ability and possibility to act without worry? To do what one pleases independently of rules and laws?
Is it living among rules and laws?
Is it independence? Autonomy?
Is it not being in a submissive relationship? Is it not being subject to an authoritarian figure?
It is innocence and youth? Or is it wisdom and age?
It is all of those things.
Or at least, I long believed that freedom was all of these things. This magical place where everything is easier. An all or nothing. An ideal for which we must yearn. I ask myself today : is it really?
***
I have been obsessed with this word. Freedom. But what I am referring to, I do not know myself.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?! WHAT IS FREEDOM??
These questions pound and blair in my head. Hover and linger like haze on a misty day.
I wonder.
…
Right now, it means comfort, stability, and absence of anxiety.
Not feeling trapped, tied down by some invisible, incommensurable, unimaginable force.
This threat to my happiness and tranquility.
Tranquility. That must be it. That is what I mean. That is what I search for : tranquility, serenity. Bliss I suppose.
(It has to be. What else if not?)
I am too tired to search, but I must.
…
Or do I? Do I necessarily need to identify this … this force, idea? This concept?
Why is freedom the only thing I can think of as the purpose of my life?
Because I feel trapped. I don’t feel free even though I live in a country that prides itself on being the freest in the world. The land of the free.
Is that so?
Technically, I am free. Freer than most, at least.
For that I must be grateful. Countless other individuals would wish for even the slightest bit of freedom (whatever that entails).
One thing is sure, it is a desire to which we have been trained and taught to aspire.
For now, I suppose I am in between : freedom and confinement, autonomy and authority.
But is “in between” real freedom?
I suppose not.
So I ask myself : is anyone ever really free?
No.
Well, that is unsatisfactory.
So, I resume my quest at freedom, or rather, at understanding what freedom is - could potentially be.
Meanwhile, I have to accept where I am knowing it is only temporary.
Things change, evolve, and morph.
For now, I am here, I am now, I am in between.
For now, I may not be completely free, but I am enough.