change your reality

The limitations of personal freedom

I remember one time we were sitting with my brother in a small park. We had just bought some snacks and were enjoying them in a crisp and sunny autumn noon. Just as we were laughing on some inside joke we had made up, I realized we were the only persons in the park. Not a single child running towards the swings; the benches empty, the birds chirping alone and the sun shining only on our puzzled faces. Where was everybody? The adults at work, the children at some daycare center. If they were lucky, they were with their grandparents, who could, being on pension, potentially take them to the park. If not, they were home alone, vegetating in front of the television.
My brother and I were fortunate enough to belong to a family that didn’t coerce us to “get a job”, as if getting a job is the solution to all your problems, and had some financial means to support us. We were free to laugh away in the park – but we were laughing alone. I remember another time, I was in a relationship with a woman that, like most women, had to work for a living. Many times I wondered: What is the use of personal freedom, if you cannot enjoy it with the people you love? Most of my girlfriends, friends, family are working in some job that takes most of their time and youth in exchange for some pieces of paper that can buy a lot of things, but they can never buy lost time or youth. So in effect, they are exchanging something invaluable with something valuable. That’s not a bargain – it’s a rip off. We call ourselves free, but we are not. You are not free if you can vote your masters every four years. Nor are you free, if you are living in a society that expects you to exchange the most fruitful years of your life in some obligatory drudgery (and everything done out of necessity becomes a drudgery) only to emerge at the end of your life, unable to enjoy the fruits of your labors, not only due to your physical incapability, but also because most fruits have by now turned sour. Add to that inflation and low pensions, and you barely can afford any fruit whatsoever.

Something has to be done – what are you going to do about it?