Freedom

I woke up one day and I was absolutely free. It’s hard to explain, but it boils down to this: I simply stopped doing the things that were keeping me from being free. That’s pretty much it. From there, there was nothing to left to do. Freedom is not an activity or a procedural thing. It’s a condition, a state of affairs. Freedom just is. And so I was. As a soaring eagle, only it didn’t matter that my feet rarely left the ground. The truth is, there was nothing I could do to NOT be free. I was even free to go back to doing the things that used to keep me from being free. And so I did, eventually, and for a good long while I was still free, still soaring. Then I woke up one day and realized with a deep, terrible pang of disappointment that I was most definitely no longer free. It didn’t take long, in that condition, to cast considerable doubt as to whether I had ever truly been free at all. For the next ten years or so I thought it all over. Eventually I came to the conclusion that it didn’t really matter whether or not I had been free, but only if I really wanted to be free right now. I thought about that for another ten years before deciding yeah, sure, I want to be free now. But not right now. Right now I need get through the rest of the academic semester, knock out a few big assignments, prepare for my final exams and presentations. Once I get through that rigmarole I’ll be ready to soar. I’ve marked my calendar. December 13, 2013. Sweet freedom. At least until the start of the spring semester.