Day 344: Is the Freedom We Seek Someone Else's Enslavement?

When I was a kid my mum told me that 'My Freedom ends where others freedom begins'.

It is very difficult to put the 'idea' of Freedom in writing unless I look at it from the perspective of what Is Not Freedom.

A particular point of my perception of lack of freedom rose up in the past few days, it went all the way into physical manifestation of discomfort, of constriction.

For a few days I resisted looking at this point because I could find good reasons why I was in fact really constricted and why really my freedom was under attack by unwelcome schedules and repetitions.

Of course complaining about it felt petty, since people who have in their belt 24 years of jail like Nelson Mandela told of how he managed to feel like a free man, proving that our perceived enslavement when we are not physically restricted in any way, and even when we are, is just a fabrication of our Mind.

Although one may note that there is a form on enslavement going on on our planet that goes way beyond the economic enslavement we have manifested, we are Prisoners of Our Own Minds, we are jailed within Ideas and Beliefs and Opinions about Others and the World, we are jailed by our own definitions of words such as 'Freedom' and what that meant to me until someone pushed for me the point of constriction until the bubble burst into memories as the blueprint of my feelings of constriction/encagement aka engagement to my own Mind.

I am a kid, forced into summer camp, usually an only, lonely child suddenly thrown into group dynamics, into kids as results of all sorts of households, little bullies who couldn't care less about Jesus and being good because they had already learnt that while good people go to heaven, the bad ones go everywhere, get everything and they were molding themselves to become successful world abusers.

So I withdrew into myself and waited for the time to go home.

Another memory, I am a kid, my mum left me with my cousins, they were all friends bar me, I was the last arrival, their mother always taking their side -my mother always taking other kids side, when is my fucking turn-, spent days sitting on the stairway to the road gate wishing my mother to walk through it, uplifting myself from the whole experience, creating a sort of waiting room inside myself where I am queuing up to go home, I know I will go home, it's just a matter of time, so I go through the motion, polite but to myself, mingle but never to the point of possible conflict, I am just doing time, until I will be Free again.

Another memory, rolling over in the big bed with my mum, I am about 13, she asks what's wrong and I say 'I want to be free', she asks me to define freedom - I realize I have no clue, I know I can't miss the chance to get My Freedom, she is willing to show me that I am Free and I am willing to show her I am not. I say 'I want to go for a walk', she said 'go', it was 10 in the evening, summertime, I get dressed and walk downstairs to the courtyard and then out of the gate, I'm out, but not free, because now I am worried about the limits of this Freedom, my mum didn't give me a curfew but it was in the air, there was an expectation that my walk should happen within a 'Reasonable' amount of time, so now I have 2 words undefined 'Freedom' and 'Reasonable', I walk fast, Not Feeling Free at all, feeling in fact tormented about how long can I stay out, what is the limit I am not supposed to cross because the limit was there, unspoken. I meet a friend of a friend and we start talking and walking together, by the time I return home my mother is in her pajamas out of the gate looking for me, my heart races, this is the end of my Freedom, the poor guy doesn't understand he says -'why are you so worried, I will explain everything' yeah, right, we get to the gate, he has a silly smile on his face and says 'don't worry ma'am, she was with me :)'...'and who the fuck are you??? Better move along boy' he stopped smiling and left, I instead crossed all the courtyard kicked in my ass by my mother, so long for Freedom...

So, there you go, enslaved to memories about perceived Lack of Freedom, a Slave of My Mind, so logically my best definition of Freedom is isolation, it's where nothing hijacks my mind, where I am in control and there aren't people pressing triggers here and there uninvited, like they were welcome to do so when they are Not, has been a hassle this life to keep it all together, I could have ended up crazy like my mother and if I didn't is because I didn't allow people to walk all over the minefield that I have become, their Freedom to do so end with my Freedom to not be done so and yet I missed the simplicity of sorting out my triggers as The Road to Freedom, because no one has power over us unless we accept it and allow it by NOT sorting ourselves out, which make us Enslaved and not Free, we are Never Free if we take thing personally or if we can be 'moved' by emotions and feelings to do or not do something.

We walk our lives not seeing this point and so others who have realized our big 'Freedom' chip-on-our-shoulders go to any length to Sell it to us, we have Freedom and Democracy, we have Freedom from Pain, Freedom Fighters, Freedom clothes, lifestyles, the Freedom of Choice, All those Freedoms are Lies because they are costing someone else their Freedom, their Lives and so it should have become obvious that That is not the Freedom we seek when we look for breakthroughs -from what?- or evasion -from where?-, it's ironic that we are willing to buy what we could give to ourselves for Free - but we don't.

Then How do we believe that the Freedom we are not willing to Grant to Ourselves for FREE, can be given to Us by those who Own the World and are not into the predicament to give it away for Free anytime soon, since it's a sellout product, and use ever imaginative ways to prove to us that we are Free and that we Can Buy More Freedom if we just Invest in It, or else that we are at risk to lose our Freedom, the one we fear to lose but that we know We Never Had, just to have someone go to jail for 24 years come out  and tell you that he was the Freest man he met, because he freed himself from his own fears, hatred, pettiness, spitefulness and stood up for a World that Would Work for All - but it didn't come True because the Freedom he hoped to teach others and give to All, can't be given, can't be bought, it's a Free Gift, you just must be willing for-giving it to Yourself and All Equally.
And that is the Only Enslavement-Free Freedom that Really Exists.