[DOWNLOAD] Nina Simone – Baltimore
“and the people hide their faces, and they hide their eyes, cuz the city’s dying, and they don’t know why”
I woke up this morning to the news that Mubarak had stepped down, and the people of Egypt were suddenly “free.” In my haze of fatigue and residual traces of blue-colored alcohol still left in my bloodstream (don’t do it, people, just say no), I lay in bed for a few minutes just contemplating the whole thing.
I have no TV these days because I’m a cheap bastard like that, and although that’s no excuse for being behind on current events, sadly my materialistic hustles absorb all of my time and energy these days. So this won’t be some analysis of the scenario a la my “Undisputed Truth” days at HipHopDX, when my liberal (save for my views on gun control) rebellious collegiate self thrived off of that shit. Nah, this is just some musing on the definition of a word that we all value: freedom.
When I saw the headlines and people on twitter talking about Egypt’s newly acquired freedom, I immediately read the first link to an article I could find and saw that rule of the country had been passed on to the military. How is this really freedom? I don’t even like stepping foot on military bases (unless it’s to partake in their outdoor shooting ranges, tons of fun right there), so I can’t imagine a whole country damn near being turned into one. The theory of revolution is a beautiful thing. It’s liberating. The actual execution of it, and the outcome, isn’t necessarily so wonderful, and Egypt is deep into that not-so-beautiful part of the process. The real beauty will happen when we see what happens over there a few years from now. If it happens.
But Egypt aside, what is freedom? Politically, is it democracy? I can tell you as a citizen of a “free” country, that I don’t feel too free most of the time, and I damn sure don’t feel like my voice means much in the grand scheme of things. I wrote a letter to Bill Clinton when I was in elementary school, and got a form letter back with a picture of him and Socks, the First Cat. That was the most direct response I ever got to something vaguely political from a person in power. And we all know it was some intern just mailing those things out in mass amounts. It’s not like I ever expect the President to answer one of my letters, that’s just unrealistic, but in the direct experiences of my life, the only time I’ve seen real change happen is when someone around me dies. Great example? My friend gets shot and killed by an off-duty cop, and then the department revises their rules on shooting at moving vehicles.
We are brought up to think we are free. But I’m of the variety that believes the only place one is truly free is in one’s own mind. A person’s physical will always be limited by something. Speed limits, jaywalking rules, underage curfews, age limits on purchasing alcohol, not being able to leave a country due to green card issues, not being able to get to a certain place because public transportation doesn’t go there and you don’t have a car. Whatever it may be. No matter how badly I might want to, I can’t travel to Cuba without jumping through mad hoops. In the pursuit of money to pay for food, a place to live, etc. we subject ourselves to jobs we hate. We have constitutional rights, and they’re dope, but we hardly live in total freedom. In fact, politically, total individual freedom is anarchy, and that doesn’t have too good of a reputation now does it?
But back to my point (if I really have just one), freedom only lies in the mind. My physical can be governed, in fact it always will be, but nobody governs my own thoughts. Hell, I can’t even control my own thoughts. Why did I have a tornado dream last night? I don’t know, but my mind was free to have one. Nobody can read my mind and censor my thoughts. And I can open my big ass mouth and spew them out at my own will and choose to face the consequences of what I say, because they’re my thoughts and I do what I please with them. It’s the one thing you really own, that money didn’t buy you, and that you can do whatever you want with. And if you look at freedom in that sense, my mind has been liberated since the day I was born, and it will be liberated until the day I die, granted that I don’t end up with something like Alzheimer’s or dementia, in which case someone might as well kill me because I can’t imagine living happily without control over my own grasp on reality.
Egypt made big moves toward what we consider physical freedom. But it was the free-thinking individuals who took control of their own thoughts, which were the only things the government didn’t control, who made that happen.
