I’ve been thinking about freedom a bit these last few days. Come hang out with me for a little while I try and put my thoughts into words.

The reason it's been on my mind, is because it's been all over the news, in the celebration of the fall of the Berlin wall and communism, the keyword freedom is on everyone’s tongue. We had it, they didn’t, that’s why we won the Cold war. That’s why we sit here pretty in our free, democratic states and don’t really ever have to think about freedom, because we just know, this is it. Freedom is what people living in dictatorships like Iran or North Korea do not have. The particular type of freedom they need is free market capitalism of course, but that should also include freedom of speech, movement, association, oh and you know, to walk to the market without being blown up.

I put the question to google, just for kicks. Tell me, kind sir, genius and gateway to the knowledge, I asked, what is freedom? The answer according to Wiki: its the right to act according to ones will without being held up by the power of others. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes both Freedom to and freedom from for every member of the human race. Freedom to join trade unions, take holidays, to worship where they like, or to chose not to worship if they so please. So too is it every individual’s right to be free from persecution, slavery, discrimination, torture or arbitrary arrest.

There’s something heart-warmingly comforting when you read the UDHR, the great declaration forged from the joining of so many nations which should govern all of their actions. It’s something I believe in wholeheartedly. It’s something I want to paint in big fat letters across the sky so that everybody throughout the world can see the thread of respect that unifies us. Or rather, should unify us. It’s something I want to believe can govern the world, despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite the fact that human rights abuses occur everyday, all over the world and that individual freedom is so transient, still. We hope, some people pray, others protest, politicians sign papers in pursuit of the goal of universal freedom, to make universal human rights actually be universal. Some people go to war and fight for these freedoms, or for the freedoms of others. But I don’t really want to dwell on the inherent ironies of pointing a gun at someones head and throwing democracy at them. Or blowing up other people so you can force them to live their lives how you think they should.

What I’ve actually been thinking about, is what freedom means for us in our air conditioned lounges on a quiet evening writing blogs. I live in a society where I am free to write a blog, and in it I could satirise or criticise my countries government as I please without fear of the website being shut down or getting myself arrested. I live in a country where I can question God and not be declared a blasphemous heretic worthy of public beheading. I’m even so lucky to live in a society where “freedom from want” is addressed, and an individual’s right to health care is honoured.

But while all the world leaders praise how free the free world is, comparatively, in so many ways our freedom is an illusion. Certainly, in contrast to a gay man in Saudi Arabia, I am very much free. I am more free than I would be if I had of been born a woman 60 years ago. But the idea that we are 100% free agents is an illusion. Even the free world isn’t free when you require passports and visas and documentation to go anywhere. Where you get fined for not wearing a helmet on a bicycle or the police can arbitrarily search you. Where if you are a refugee, travelling across wide oceans in little boats, running away from injustice in pursuit of freedom, chances are the free world is going to treat you like a quasi-criminal engaging in an illegal activity.
True freedom would theoretically be anarchy, open borders. I do not hold such faith in humanity that these things are actually a good idea. Take away all laws and lines in the sand and I know there will still be someone ready to tell you how to live your life, and be prepared to force you to do it.

But even if I think the notion of true freedom is little more than an illusion, I think there is real danger in forgetting the meaning of freedom and forgetting that we do have it. In the “free world” we don’t have to think about freedom on a daily basis. We lose touch with how thankful we should be to live in democratic societies. Our key concern should be with maintaining our freedoms and rights, and sharing them. But instead, with our notion of our own freedom vaguely in the back of our minds, we call for tougher policing and tighter border security.

Even as my cynicism and my realism destabilises my fleeting youthful idealism, I’ll continue to believe wholeheartedly in the United Nations and the dreamy notion of a world where “..recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace..” This will be my only religion.

Please take me book, absorb me body and soul...

I can only begin to imagine how it would feel to be haunted by terrifying memories of war, to flinch at sudden sounds and be paralysed by reoccurring images. I’m familiar with the power of happy memories that bring a smile to your face at the most random of times or make you burst out laughing for no apparent reason. But I can’t begin to understand how it would feel to wake feverishly in the night at the slightest sound, to be pursued by frightful memories of the past or terrorised by images of death, disease and despair. I have enough trouble with happy memories that time has turned into cement blocks of regret, memories of emotion that can very nearly wind me as I walk down the street, memories that should in no way be significant, but are to me.
When uni classes finish and free time abounds, these memories begin to prey on me. I drag myself down into despair and allow negative thoughts and images to stampede into my brain, just because my neurons have suddenly found themselves without sufficient stimuli or indeed a reason to get up and dressed and ready for the day. I have this feeling hanging over my head like an irritating fly buzzing about my ears that there’s something I’m supposed to be doing. That I’m wasting my time, my life yadayada... It seems I function best if my brain is too busy to be concerned with itself.

Finding myself with time, I picked a random book off the bookshelf that I hadn’t got round to reading and escaped out the back door. I soon found myself so completely and utterly drawn into its pages that the prospect of finishing it scared me to death. I felt safe in this fictionalised world. I remember once reading an article that discussed how our brains categorise characters that we meet in books or on TV as our friends, perhaps a little sad, but definitely true. I had the sense that I would be ok as long as I was reading, as long as I was in this slow meandering story of other lives. I read and read and read, all day long, in the park, on the train, on my couch, in a different park. This was a world in which I didn’t have to make decisions, where I had no memories, all I had to do was float and watch it pass me by. I dreaded the time that I’d eventually have to go back out there to the world I rather not be in, the one in which I’m the main character and the plot is only halfway appealing 20% of the time. The story gave me a purpose. I worried about what I would do when I finished the book, about how I could actually go on without it.

And now here I am, out in that world again, waking, sleeping, drifting... It is an incredible paradox that I’m free to do exactly what I like, and yet I’ve never felt so unfree, mentally.