Announcement: I have re-opened commenting capabilities on this blog! I so much look forward to hearing your thoughts - sharing ideas, strategies, and exigencies with each other will hopefully inspire us to deepen our thinking and become more effective in our actions towards a just and sustainable future. To ensure constructive commenting, each post you create will go through a screening process before I publish it. I welcome dissonance, but not disrespect. Sadly, "pre-approving" is a measure I must take given some of the comments left in the past. I can't wait to share in new and challenging conversations with all of you. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing from you!
In 1969 there was a documentary called Nina Simone, a series of interviews and early footage of the artist's performances as she transforms into the inspirational musical visionary she became. In this documentary she is asked what Freedom is...She ponders this and says "No fear!" with an electricity felt when you just discover a previously unreachable idea: When the puzzle pieces of existence fit a little more logically, and suddenly you are reinvented and from that point on you see from a deeper lens, a wider vantage point, and your brain finds a better way to calculate and understand the utter unease of existence. Oprah calls this an ''Ah ha'' moment, and we watch Nina experience this on screen.
I've returned to this segment of the documentary whenever I feel un-free, constricted, confined, or unmovable. And then...something happened today. I spent the morning looking over the bay in Gloucester, MA, and realized I felt totally and utterly free. Nina Simone says Freedom is no fear!, and within that insight there are other aspects too. Watching boats drift in the current, while thinking about the wide ranges of wealth and poverty in the world, the environment, and this utter unease of existence, I came upon another piece of the What is Freedom? puzzle. Freedom is the knowing that you have the ability to change that which confines you, and then transforming this knowledge into action. Freedom is knowing that you can work towards disembodying the oppressive force - be it slavery, a group of people, money whatever.
I suppose another word for this would be Hope, but not passive hope, but hope in action. Freedom is knowing that you have the ability to change that which confines you, and not for personal recognition, or careerist or individualist ends -- But for empowerment, well being, and community. Knowing ones personal ability to work towards changing what encloses you is important, but doing something about it is crucial to feeling truly Free. Knowing that you can do something, but not doing anything is bound to only temporary contentment, because you still remain a victim without resources. By volunteering with others, talking to others, and doing things for others we become victors: Individually we win small battles, together we win wars.
The doing is Freedom, let it ring!
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