Hmmm, I feel like I am about to drop
a heavy load as I write this piece. I won’t say I am free even after this write
up, because I know I would be indebted to reply comments of faithful readers, I
would want to write more, monitor my website, try to live a good life, and many
more comes to mind to do. It is like am never free.
This brings me to the topic. When
the word freedom comes up,
sub-consciously, the liberty-life
comes into mind. Like I can do what I want to do, where I want to do it, when I
want to do it, and how I want to do it, without answering the ‘why did I do it
question’ to anybody. Please for the
sake of this article I am not talking about the kind of freedom a slave gets
from his master or a country from its colonial masters. I am talking
about that personal kind of freedom, at work, in marriages, in schools etc.,
that kind of freedom that happens in cartoons, not in real life. That freedom
that’s only a fallacy.
So we would be looking at freedom
from two definitions taken from the Cambridge
advanced learner’s dictionary third edition.
*The
condition or right of being able or allowed to do, say, think, etc. whatever
you want to, without being controlled or limited.
I
guess if I do understand this definition, here it talks about the kind of
freedom where we exhibit our basic human right. Right to life, choice, speak,
to be informed, to justice, to be who you legally want to be etc., this is
where liberty comes to play right?
In contrast liberty according to
this same dictionary is “the freedom to live as you wish or go where you want”which in my nearest surrounding its almost or entirely
impossible.
Where parents decide the fate of
their children, even for the child un-born. I hear an expectant father say to
his wife “the child in your womb is going to study medicine if she is a girl,
or study engineering if he is a boy,” and the child un-born has to live with
the fate of an early cut in his/her professional freedom.
Where your parents have an unsettled
dispute with another family and invariably infringe you on your rights to
movement.
Where your boss asks you to call
white as black, and your so called freedom / liberty dare not allow you speak
nay. If you eventually say nay, then freedom of justice wont justify the
justness of your justly action.
You call anybody in this environ
free? Because I would ask what is he free from? When a man wakes up, he doesn’t
want to go to work, because he loves nothing he does. After he forces himself
to work, closing time he doesn’t want to go home, he hasn’t got much to give
his wife, or he was married on contract basis (probably to get citizenship, business deal etc.), now he is tired
of the marriage. This brings me to the second definition of the dictionary in
use.
*The
state of not being in prison. This is what I tend to laugh at. What is a prison?
According to this same dictionary. A
building where criminals are forced to live as a punishment. Just now let’s
forget the part where its meant for criminals and change the word ‘criminals’
to ‘people’, as the second definition goes a
situation or relationship from which it is difficult to escape.
So this is my concept of a prison, a secured place you try
to survive in, can’t escape from, and from which you are forced to follow a
particular order or protocol. In this place you dare not escape, you escape you
probably die. So how do you explain this?
We live in a world where we are
bounded with shackles of gravity, and anyone who breaks this chain, and escape
into space wouldn’t survive, even with aid you can only survive but for a
while. A world ruled by some sect of people called leaders, who deliver
speeches saying “freedom…. Independence …. Rights ….blablabla” but in their
meetings, they set up rules we are all bounded and must leave by. They give the
freedom, dictate the freedom, and can take the freedom.
Well I`m no prophet of doom, neither
am I a motivational speaker, am just a writer, writing out my thoughts. So if
you ask me what I think of the word freedom, I would start with the lyrics of a
song we sang back in secondary school days;
“We
shall become whatever we choose to be
No
king, no lords, no knave can say us nay
For
we believe that man is a potential doctor, or lawyer, or crook, or dwarf, or
giant
Whichever
he sets his mind to be.”
I believe freedom is a thing of the
mind, everybody have one person he/she answers to. But if I love music and I
practice music, no matter the challenge, I face it. I don’t get to see my
mistakes as extra work, because I love what I do, in fact I wouldn’t mind
staying extra hours in the studio if possible sleep there.
“I
have not slept in my house over one year. I have been living in the studio at
Lekki”
Don
Jazzy.
You ask me what has this got to do
with freedom, I would tell you the opposite of freedom is bondage. According to
the dictionary in use bondage is; ‘the state of being
another person's slave.’
So if I love agriculture and I am
forced to carry my father’s pharmacy company, don’t be surprised if I run at a
lost, or die from depression, because I would grumble, face stress, as such be
a slave in a field where there are masters, “a
slave can’t be better than his master”
Little wonder how Ebola was curbed
in Nigeria; A certain female doctor (AmeyoAdadevoh)
who could have run for her dare life, stood at the door saying “man you can’t
leave this place”, knowing she was open to infections from a disease which she
already knew there was no cure to. Yet she stood her ground, knowing what she
loved was the safety of her country. She was free to leave, worst case scenario
the government would seize her certificate, and she would still be living. But
no, doing that would put her in her mental bondage, taking blame for every
death she could have stopped. Probably dying unfulfilled, in her own bondage.
Could give lot of examples like, David and music -even as a king he wrote psalms, and his dance was so much that he was
mocked by his wife. Jesus and
teaching -he could be a carpenter and
still die for sins.Or imagine Samson the
strong as a palm wine tapper he could
probably tie himself to the tree with his hair.
I`m of a school of thought that says
we all have a purpose, so my examples are based on this. Well it doesn’t matter
which school you choose to follow, like I said am just a writer putting down my
thoughts.
I just
know the moment the mind is free, the whole world doesn’t seem to matter, you
move, talk, like you own the world, you are happy, and that is true freedom.
Freedom is not a fallacy, it is to be earned,
and only a few earn theirs. With this I leave you with the lyrics of a music
icon
BY EGWU EMMANUEL
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