We all, or at least most of us, have grown up watching a bird set free from its cage as the most relevant metaphorical reference to freedom – something which we have, not surprisingly, internalised as well.
Recently, I came across a post on one of those inspire-people-through-real-life-stories pages that I follow on Facebook. It spoke of a man who had just been released from jail and was now travelling to every single part of his country in a bid to enjoy ‘true freedom’. There were 10k likes on the post and a few thousand comments too. I realised how much people related to this idea of ‘being free’ – to be able to move about and experience the world in all its beauty and boredom without any hindrance, filling your lungs with air, eyes with sights, ears with all kinds of sounds, nose with odours distinct and pleasant – largely, living life with mobility and among people, and most importantly living life the way you want to without being restrained by space or notions or both. The image of a free bird being released from the cage struck me again.
I am constantly amazed by the many intricate layers that the word ‘Freedom’ has to it. Freedom is about ‘being yourself’ without being judged, forced, hurt or controlled. It’s about you taking decisions for yourself and having the right to choose what you want to do in life and about life. It’s about living your life without fear, without guilt. It’s about being financially independent. It’s about being able to move around on your own will. It’s about having some time for yourself every day where the world around you just fades away and so do the anxieties of a life that is rampant with man-created complexities that threaten to derail you in your journey every minute. Freedom, then, is about finding that ‘peace’ you need to find within yourself.
Contemplating about life in today’s world is a daunting exercise. But you can’t escape it because you live in it every single day and you are part of this race that shocks you with its strange madness. To witness and experience this madness is perhaps part of the punishment that comes with being born human. For, above all the startling achievements and mind-boggling discoveries that mankind has sought to achieve and has achieved, there’s this demonic desire and thirst for power, the need to exert superiority, the need to snatch somebody’s birth right – freedom. The growing number of war deaths, sexual assaults and disgusting acts of discrimination in terms of gender, caste and race that don’t spare even little children shock me into silence.
It’s an altogether different thing if someone’s freedom is lost for their own fault but when the freedom of innocent lives is at stake, for no mistake of theirs, it is unacceptable. The moment I start thinking about how and when these issues will get resolved, my mind spins. The magnitude of transformation that is required to heal this world of all its wickedness that is costing its people their priceless freedom is definitely hard to grasp but one does understand that the need to bring that change is always an ongoing process. I may be sounding simplistic, but I do believe that the beginning should happen at homes where children have to be sensitised about how only love, equality, peace and understanding can bring about freedom in its truest sense. And of course, there is a greater need now than ever before to initiate and carry out conversations to turn the world’s attention to, ironically, probably what we all know at the bottom of our hearts but only refuse to acknowledge openly.
Our personal lives aren’t very pretty pictures too, are they? Yes, Facebook pictures are all about smiles and laughter and fun. But we do know that in many cases that this is not the full story. Fear, stress and insecurities of a dozen types have percolated down to our personal lives too. We chase dreams that we think make us happy but they stress us out and make fearful monsters out of us. Since when did life get so fast-paced that we have lost the freedom to be with ourselves? Sometimes, in my conversations with people, I have seen them wonder about the ‘purpose’ of what they do. What was all the hue and cry about when you can’t find time for yourself?
As a child, I would often wonder seriously as to why my mother rejoiced and looked forward to a cup of filter coffee with my father at 5:30 in the morning and why my grandparents looked forward to their prayer sessions so much. What was the big deal? After all these years, today, as an adult working hard to make my own mark in this world, and as a mother of two, I now understand what that cup of early morning coffee and those prayers meant to those people. In fact, I think that we need our de-stressing mechanisms more now than ever before. I see my neighbour flop into her sofa with the phone glued to her ear, a cup of piping hot tea in hand, the moment her husband and children leave for work. I see men and women in smart whites jogging down the well-maintained roads of our gated community unmindful of the morning chillness in the air. I hear my friends talk about meditation or swimming or working out at the gym as means of de-stressing. I see my maid unwind and chat up breezily about her hectic day and family woes as she washes vessels. I understand that it is by doing things that ease up your mind that one tries to find the freedom that’s lost in the everyday chaos and struggles of life. In relief lies the feeling of freedom.
I would be lying if I said I never needed such daily therapeutic doses to loosen myself up. A late night programme or movie on the television with the husband after the kids fall asleep or chatting up with him over family-pack ice-cream scooped copiously into stainless steel bowls do make life seem so much better. Those telephone conversations every day with Mother during noon after a hectic morning as I whine and laugh would make me experience the freedom of a child again.
But beyond all these, I am eternally thankful to the universe for three things without which my life is hard to imagine – books, music and the gift of imagination. I strongly believe that sometimes loneliness could turn out to be your best friend. I think this experience of freedom, when you are all by yourself, is such an enjoyable form of independence. I treasure that one hour of uninterrupted music on my iPod during the nights when I shut the world out with earphones after the family has fallen asleep. The peace it brings to me is unbelievable. Quiet nights are such lovely times to read books too. Reading a good book and soaking in the world that words create transports you to a world unknown. That surreal experience is my version of freedom.
Which is why I say I treasure the gift of imagination. Nothing can give you a more fulfilling experience of freedom than what you can do with your sense of imagination. Every little thing that you have ever wanted to do, every word that you have wanted to utter, every event that you have wanted to happen, is possible there. When thoughts run free, peace dawns and most often, without even you realising it, you fall into the most coveted form of freedom – sound sleep, the state in which the root-of-all-worldly-troubles, the gigantic ego, ceases to be.
Picture by Ian Sane under CC license