Freedom just might be a luxury. We squander it, take it for granted and lose it far too easily. Freedom is not cherished, and protected - no, it is simply expected, like going to the market knowing there will be eggs and milk there, not empty shelves. Months and months of people saying they have lost their freedom, months of people recklessly enjoying their conspiracy take on freedom. It is impossible math, and what it adds up to is a perfect picture of our world. The ships are full of fools - believing they are invincible, believing they can enjoy certain rights simply by breathing, believing they are safe from microbes and big money, protected by countries and institutions. It is all a house of cards, and that is not a breeze that knocks them over, it is a howling wind.
"I have no freedom." I hear this from all sides.
Meanwhile, Anne Frank was twelve and created a modern masterpiece while living in an attic for two years. And yes, she died. But I keep thinking that she lived - that she thrived during those two years in captivity. Maybe she was more alive than any of us will be in our long, wasteful lives.
What we have taken for granted has been removed, and in its absence we are right up against who we really are. Warts and all, this is not who we think we are. But the mirror does not lie. The scale does not lie. The camera, the phone, every telling message, they do not lie. If we can actually see them, and the truth they carry, that is the real question. The truth is so very ugly. And yet, if you move beyond the disappointment - it brings great comfort. It brings relief. Suddenly your feet touch the ground again. It does not make friends, in fact it alienates you. But when it arrives, it brings the most quiet sleep, the most quiet mornings, as the world outside the windows trots along, as the day’s headlines appear and evaporate like the tides, as the earth grows hotter and the oceans turn to poison, as winter tiptoes in, the cure is on the way and that luxury is not too far behind it, and then we can go back to ignoring the mirrors and pretend we are free again.
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