Freedom

I am in a box and it has no windows and no doors, no mode of escape and really poor ventilation. Like the ones you see on magic shows with David Copperfield, only he's an escape artist and just my luck, magic school is not taking any applications. So what do I do? I kick and scream and hope that somebody hears me; that somebody will come and rescue me from this prison. To no avail my screams go un-heard, so I relent and become lost in dreams the vast expanse of my mind provides. For a short time that becomes my freedom until reality returns with its brute force slapping me back to consciousness. I really hate that. If I could live in my dreams I would, it is only there that I feel truly satisfied...

But why? This is the question - a thought that I have been pondering for probably the majority of my life. Why is it that I am so unsatisfied? The game of life keeps giving me new hands to deal and, truthfully, in a game of poker I wouldn't be doin' so badly - so why the constant need for change, for challenge, for adventure? It never stops, my mind a whirling collage of dreams orchestrated by my inner-most self. She wants out. No more cages, no more bars, just freedom, pure and simple.

I look at my life and it seems I’m waiting for it to start. I constantly trick myself into believing that life is in slow-mo, that I’m doing what I should be doing and when I’m done I can finally do what I want to do. The pressures of this world are so great at times I feel like giving up. The expectations too high to meet; the challenges too great to overcome. So I move, or I take a new job; I make plans that I know will never carry through – just to feel like things are happening, that I’m not getting stuck in the monotonous rat race that inevitably seems to consume everyone.

Once a month I cross the small bit of ocean that separates the mainland from the Islands. I go there for many reasons, but perhaps the most important is the sense of harmony and purpose I feel on those rocky shores. For the hour and a half it takes to navigate through passes, channels and the open sea, I am lost in contemplation. I think and think and think some more. It seems as though it is the only time that my mind is clear and I feel connected to the world around me. That ocean knows my secrets, it knows my heart. I stand against the railing and cry out to the rolling waves of the deep blue begging for answers. The sea swells with my angst and anxiety, the sun spreads its warmth on days when I feel at peace. I feel free in those moments, but perhaps that is only because my shackles are loosened. They are never fully released.

Freedom is a powerful concept. One that is drenched in a bloody history of philosophical musings and conquest. It is a concept that contains a different meaning for everyone from individual independence and free-will to national sovereignty and self-determination. Freedom. You hear it whispered softly behind the prison bars at night, you see it on the faces of abused children and in the eyes of soldiers, you smell it in the alley ways amongst the hookers and addicts and you read it on the blog of a girl who can’t get her shit together enough to realize that her freedom is right in front of her, she’s just too scared to admit it.