The idea of freedom has eluded many of great men. People have fought and died for the idea of freedom. People have fought for a promise of freedom, to live a life free of worry, corruption and hardship. We have grown into a society thinking that what we call ‘freedom’ is indeed freedom at all. The possibility of succeeding in a money-driven, ‘get-rich’, big-box consumer world is the furthest thing from freedom. Freedom is not the individualist ideal of succeeding above all else, while leaving others behind. Freedom is a communal ideal; the idea that all people should be free.
Freedom is not-so-often forgotten. People are willing to give up their personal freedoms at the effects of security. People refuse to give up their everyday, 9-to-5, ‘come home to frozen dinner’ lives in response to a little instability. The idea that people have radical ideas is scary to the common apathetic. Why do people preach about freedom and their rights to freedom, yet are so willing to be commonly under the watchful eye of Big Brother?
The media is a brilliant thing. Here we have a collective so caught up in spinning the truth and creating hysterics that they have left out many real truths. The media has supressed information and will not run a commercial that counteracts one of their corporate money spenders. It’s sad that a commercial can run, promoting the next big Cola product but a commercial advertising awareness in media is laughed out of the Production Managers Office. Why do Super Bowl ads run in the millions of dollars for 30 seconds of airtime? Has money become the owner of our airwaves?
People have grown so entranced by the idea of money and procuring more things. It’s a sickness to feel empty without buying more and more. It used to be ‘keeping-up-with-the-Jones’” but now it’s an expectation. You’re made to feel insecure. You are looked down upon if you can’t afford the newest and biggest thing. Poverty is not ‘cool’ in the minds of the ‘cool-makers’; The idea that money is the way to be ‘cool’ leads me to believe that there are other hands at play. Are we really to believe that, as a collective, we are to spend more and more? Where does that bring us? Does it not bring us further into debt and with more stuff than we know what to do with?
Where is the freedom of yesterday? When did people become so lost in their everyday? It’s not so hard to believe that once, not-so-long ago, people used to spend time together. Without the idea of spending hours in front of the television set. There were times when kids used to play outside and stay out until the sun started going down. Can you still remember the smell of fall? How about the first smell of dew in the spring? Does the sound of birds in the morning make you smile? The simple things are what bring us back closer to freedom. It’s when we start to leave all of our daily distractions behind and get back to living that we can start to embrace freedom. Don’t just crave it, live it.
