Freedom is a drop of mercury under our thumb. We press it for answers, we seek to contain it, and it eludes us. It is what is left after we discover everything it is not. What is not “not free.” It is longing for, a celebration within, an expression of … a life without sadness, impedance, discomfort, anxiety – and fear…fear. There is only One freedom, it’s always there (that brass ring) and it is seen most clearly by those who DON’T hold it. But let’s indulge.
Many believe freedom is a divine endowment, but first you must believe in God. Is this really true though? We run around with our individual totems of freedom, like pagans with idols. There is a singular higher authority that is evident in all humans… it discloses itself at opposite spectrums of being-ness, when “…something just doesn’t feel right,” and when “…something seems quintessentially perfect.” It is a self-cognizance of pure and true freedom, and this self-knowledge precedes a belief in God. Nourish the soul that believes in freedom.
For some, freedom began and ended with the vindication of a school bully; for others, liberation from our parents who restricted us “for our own good.” My freedom could be “spelled out” in the Bill of Rights, The Articles of the Constitution, the laws of Loudoun County, Virginia, the City of Ashburn, and my neighborhood home owners association. There is even an International Bill of Rights. And my freedom allows me to bear arms, while another’s does not. I am free to speak, another is free to express malignly, but another can say nothing under penalty of death. Freedom is Franklin Graham spitting vitriolic characterizations of others not of his religious ‘ilk.” Even our currency reads “In God we Trust,” but money is not free for anyone. I don’t believe most humans know where to place freedom within our personal corpus of true inner convictions.
And like anything we value as providing us advantage (vice opportunity) we measure it; we decree it as if it’s our own, and treat it as a commodity to be dolled out and regulated by the powerful. Thus it is lusted for, not honored; craved, not sipped; we have a voracious appetite for every thing we believe freedom entitles us too. As a commodity, we “fear” it’s limited in supply; it carries weight, and becomes a standard of moral currency. In its misperception as a commodity with which everything is for trade, freedom enslaves humankind by exploiting our weakness in character and proclivity to accumulate things in excess. Freedom is not a quantity.
Freedom is too often treated as a “thing,” when it is really “no-thing.” It is a state of doing, a state of being, a state of having and not having. What is fair, what is free, what is “right,” these are very different and often confused things. These are not about giving everyone the same amount of the same thing… it is stepping off of their necks and out of their way, and giving access to be what they already are. Freedom is not what’s in it for you. Freedom for you begins in how you choose to see and respect what is in it for others. Two things free from each other, are neither slave nor master.
Have you noticed, the greatest quotes on freedom don’t come from the wealthy, the free, the privileged … and certainly not me. It comes from those who are and who see themselves as “not free.”
I think of Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Malala Yousafzai, and that boy who stood before a military tank in Tiananmen Square. I think about those in this world who truly recognize freedom, and I ask them where it begins and ends.
Every great man was once Not Free.
