Anyone got any advice about the stomach flu? Never had it before but now, 3 days in, can’t hold food down and feel like I’m now 3 rounds in with a young Mike Tyson. I’ll survive. But what it teaches you is how precious our time is here and how precious our own freedom to live, do, be, is.
I say this with sadness after the recent events in Canada.
I’ve lived in many countries with restricted freedoms - notably Ukraine and Russia. Hell, I live in one big one right now - Nicaragua. One thing I’ve always noted through my relationships and speaking with people - people don’t care too much about those higher-ups, their leanings, their policies and preferences. They know their place pretty well and what counts. What they do care about is being able to improve their lot, leave a better place and world for their kids. It’s that simple.
“Money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will.” – Nelson Mandela
In a word, that is a wish to create a world where things get better. And in my own reading, my own experience and knowledge of the world - the only way this is achieved and has ever been achieved is through freedom, respecting the individual freedoms and rights of others, even when you might not agree or like them.
You see, freedom is a state of mind as much as it is laws, charters, bills of rights and declarations. It’s the invisible hand that keeps a light on. And that freedom of mind withers when people have to look over their shoulders, have no trust invested in them by the powers that be. The social compact bleeds, suffers. Freedom dies on the stem of each mind. And that death is the death of our tomorrows.
“A bird born in a cage thinks flying is an illness.” - Old Romanian folk saying.
I remember living in the Czech Republic just after the rotting concrete of Communism had fallen. Sure, there was some elation. But most people above the age of 40 just continued along in a daze. They’d forgotten how to live. For years, they were in a cocoon of unfreedom, where there was no possibility of anything getting better. So they just accepted things as they were, they sleepwalked.
And that’s what a country that has no freedom is like. It isn’t about this politics or that party, or this leader. Or voting every 4 years. It is about how your own daily actions are not limited in respect to building a life, making things better. Freedom counts in the small things, it’s the very air life itself thrives in.
And here’s the rub. Freedom is something we all must protect, it’s a continual fight. You can’t give an inch. Or like that thumb in the dyke, when it comes out - you’re screwed. You won’t get it back.
So, wherever you are - the lesson is “Hold The Frickin’ Line”. I won’t move an inch off of that belief.
Cheers!
I am here
this is enough
like the last seed pushes
through the rougher rough.
Want, desire, need
abstract things I
no longer bleed.
This apple now in my mouth.
I am here.
Piss, shit, breath and spit.
I lounge and loafe.
There is no longer any
getting on with it.
For others there
the buzz of progress, nicer hair.
I lift my glass.
I walk not there.
I am here.
This is enough.
Like the glistening tired ant pulls
the large leaf through the rough.