Freedom

This kid—who wants to be the king of the pirates—just wants to be the freest man in the world. That’s his motivation for wanting to be king; freedom; the sweet breath of freedom that most of us don’t truly get to feel—only the kings of our world get to do that. The elites, they have freedom; and we get whatever world they want us to live in.

Maybe that’s true to some extent.

Maybe that’s an incredible exaggeration.

Maybe we have a slice of freedom, and in that slice lies our free-will and all of the choices that we intentionally make for ourselves—if any.

Freedom.

I suppose this is where someone would have to break down what that concept means to them.

I don’t really want to do that right now. I don’t want to define freedom. It’s a concept and a feeling—and maybe a uniquely human feeling—that could be beyond defining.

“What lazy intellect is this?” you may be asking.

I am not an intellect. Not everyone who writes is an intellect. We are all dumb. You and me. I am just a writer: not a shaman, intellect or prophet; just a writer. I don’t want to define everything. I just want to express it. I just want to be . . . well, free.

God damnit.

I want to be the king of the pirates.

I don’t want to be defined.

I am like freedom that way.

I want to be free to be lazy.

So, hold me to your standards if you wish, but a free man won’t be bothered by the standards of others; a free man does what he wants to do; he thinks for himself; the chatter of the crowd—or the daggers from the critic—don't matter to the free man.

If the free man doesn’t see a path, then he makes one. This is not some act to be praised as bold or intelligent, it just is the thing to do in the soul of the free man.

Freedom.

“Free from what?”

I’m glad you asked.

I don’t know the answer.

-C.H. 7/8/23