My philosophical self is back, I think. I’ve been thinking a lot about freedoms and liberties, and what they mean to me. Freedom, to me, is something that is most precious and dear. I cannot imagine giving up my fundamental rights for anyone, anywhere, at any time. Yet, so many do relinquish these freedoms for base pleasures and basic needs. In some countries, freedom must be relinquished to hold on to that which matters most: life itself. With that perspective, freedom means something great to me, something far greater than any American propaganda can tell me.
Freedom is the ability to say what one wants, when one wants. Without taking politics and national policies into account, everyone has this freedom. Add in the politics, however, and no one has this freedom. One wrong word, one wrong idea, one wrong opinion, and you could be removed from your position. Recently, Imus found this out, along with Stern and others. Before them, there was the era of McCarthyism, where anything that sounded “red” was censored. This is restriction of speech.
Freedom is the ability to live life as you are, without modifying oneself for the benefit of society. Any responsible person would willingly modify themselves to benefit society anyway, but it is out of their freedom, not their obligation to the state, that this ability is most appreciated.
In short: If you want to change me, just leave me alone. If you want me to change, then show me something I’ve never seen before. I might just modify it myself. Otherwise, I’m good.
That is what freedom means to be: the right to be me.
I Vant To Be Left Alone
29 04 2007I love Greta Garbo. One of the most famous, not to mention mysterious, actresses of the 20th century. She had a famous line, one which is quoted the world over. Wikipedia has an entry on it, which I’ll quote here:
I, like Greta the Great, wish to be left alone about certain things. A post has been left about me on someone else’s web page, whose page I will not promote here, that is incredibly degrading towards my character and does not entirely represent me as a person. While certain things that were posted are true, this person has misrepresented their own position, attitudes, and ideals in a misguided attempt at some retaliation, to gain the upper hand.
I suppose that I could take a persecution complex and say that this is just a part of the system that seeks to abuse me and destroy my life, as a bisexual in a homosexual relationship and as a de facto atheist, but I won’t. I invited a fair share of this on myself by trusting my opinions to someone who doesn’t care about them the way that I do. So, in that, I suppose an apology is due to this person and to myself for letting myself open up; it led to what has already transpired.
The whole thing, though, has made me realize that more and more, I want to utter the words of Greta the Great in desperation: I Vant To Be Left Alone. Not that I want to be alone, or that I want all of you who read this to run away without commenting or even giving me a little advice. It’s just that too often I find my life being assailed by neo-religious dogma instead of carefully thought out, tactful discussion. People keep telling me that it’s “just a phase, it’ll go away,” and I just want to scream at them and tell them that I’ve felt this way for years, I’ll continue feeling this way for years, and after those long years, I might just like it. People tell me I’m wrong, insist that their philosophies do not feed the hatred in the world, and they think that just because my people have been taking this kind of abuse for years that I’ll just lie down and take it, that I am their bitch for them to beat around. Well, I’m not. I hurt; I bleed: is that so hard to believe?
I am a people person; I like people, most of the time. More and more often, however, I’m beginning to truly understand just why Greta Garbo and others like her have uttered the words and lived the lives of recluses.
Rant over. Sorry about that, I hope that you’ll forgive me for being a bit pessimistic, but I have had these emotions pouring through me and I did not want them to fester. Now that they’re out, free, and unchained to roam away from here, I should be back to my normal, cheery, optimistic self.
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