Freedom

I don’t like freedom, I feel like I’m not really alive unless I know what I’m willing to die for; and what trajectory I’m on. When I hear “freedom” I hear “nothing to lose” – which is not attractive to me, especially because I’ve been there, involuntarily. All it is, is hunger.

I need a reason to get up in the morning, a sense of purpose that remains constant; something that runs so deep in my bones, I trust it will fuel me for several lifetimes, if only I could live that long. Music did this for me; and my fantasy series, although that has more of a ‘slow burn’ effect during some periods, whereas music is always on red-hot fire mode.

People seem to hold freedom as some kind of ideal. To me, freedom exists only within limits. Meaning there’s something I have to do, somewhere I have to be, some deadline I have to meet. Mortality is intrinsically a limit, so our minds are programmed to exist within it; and I’m all too aware , due to illness, that I could die at any time. To me freedom is knowing that while I was here, I lived. I did something meaningful, valuable, highly specific. Something expressed itself through me. I need to know I surrendered to a force greater than myself — the divine symmetry of music; the epic tapestry of my fictional world. The rhythm of life. 

 

Freedom is knowing that if the illness takes me from my body tomorrow, I won’t regret what I did (or didn’t do) with my life.  Freedom is knowing my purpose is strong enough that I can justify consuming plants and meat and other resources to survive. That my life was worth the sacrifice of all those other living entities. (It’s not really worth it, but at the very least, I know those sacrifices didn’t go to waste if my life has meaning .)  Without meaning, it seems more morally justifiable to take my own life. 

‘Freedom’ … it’s empty. It’s cold. It’s nothingness, formless.  At least in the sense of being “free of obligation, free of constraint.”  Give me something worth fighting for, something worth dying for. That’s freedom. If I die fighting for it, I’m free to die in peace.