Are We Really Free ?
Sitting in my balcony in the pleasant evening as it rains, this independence day has too passed. While enjoying the solitude, I observe the surroundings around my apartment and ask myself some questions this independence day. Surroundings that are lonely, unlike the past when I was growing up.
Since the independence, our country may have developed and emerged in various sectors of development, science, technology, arts, infrastructure, other industries, sports, etc. just like other countries, but, here I do not see a direction where the free people of this country are heading in. The pace is too fast to catch up and people have been engulfed by this speed.
The speed has swallowed people and their thoughts completely. The busy routine, lifestyle and the growing complexities in the nature of work have made it difficult for this human to think.
It is all connected, I think. Being a part of the society, one not only deals with day to day routine and its demands but also fights with what our government thrusts upon us. The common shackles that we are trapped in by or because of the government are the complex law system, taxation policies, mandatory documentation and other paperwork, traffic system, hospitalization and medicare procedures, law implementation, politics, religion, difficult education system, etc.
We all, at some point of time, have been affected by the tedious demands of our system and the damage it has done to our lives. The damage that is done is irreversible and has cost us our lives. Yes, people die when they forget to live.
I’d like to add here a few lines from a book I read a while back, ‘Into the Wild’ by Jon Krakauer. The book was a masterpiece.
“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”
The thought that parallels here is that we have been so busy all this while with all the complexities around that we do not dare to live and walk as free men. The time consuming and the irritating system does not allow the common man to step out of the box and hence, the level of difficulty of the fight soars.
The fight is not just with the world for living or to pursue our passions and interests, but there is a greater fight and it is generally ignored. That is the fight within.
This busy system with technology companioning along eats a lot of our time and determination to survive with our true personality. We are not anymore calm and composed beings or rather breeds, but are slaves to the routine and hence, to our own thoughts.
We are not happy, free souls anymore but rather busy robots that work around the clock to settle or to maintain our lifestyles. We work for the money and forget our purpose of existence because we are busy.
We are busy in working for the government and fulfilling its various demands every other day.
We are busy in protecting ourselves.
We are busy in trying to survive.
We are busy in working.
We are busy in traffic.
We are busy.
The dullness of our lives has wounded our thoughts greatly. We have forgotten a not long ago era which was bound by companionship and love for the neighbor. Where the complexities were little less and the happiness was little more. Where time was a friend and friends had time.
The questions that follow these thoughts are:
“Where is the independence and where is the freedom?
Where is the happiness? and, the dreams are seldom.
Where is the time and where are the friends?
Where is the road, only dead ends!
Where is that space,
Where we can escape?
Where are the people divided by their religion?
Where is that place that we call our region?
Where is the sky that was once high?
The world is shattered,
Nothing but Good-bye!”
. . . . And, so we must ask ourselves,
ARE. WE. REALLY. FREE. . . . . ?
(To sum up,
We are only commuters living in the age of computers.
Now, it’s our turn to be freedom fighters.)
~Kabir Malik
15th August, 2015
