Freedom does not mean you are free to be dumb!

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Freedom,
No it does not mean you are free to be dumb,
Yes and you do not have to be or remain numb,
It means a chance to lift yourself beyond the labeling fog of teenage mom,
It means you are free to dare and rise from the discouraging slum,
A chance to weather the numerous storms of life and some,
You do not have to continue feeding from the falling table crumb,

Come,
Freedom means you get a chance to rise from every mistake to be a better you,
So let the fear of errors never paralyze you,
Freedom means to learn and grow towards the best person you could ever be.

© September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

Freedom from the Fear of Fear

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Whether you are several awards holding Derek Sanderson Jeter who is running his final lap in American Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees and whose sterling career has him leaving as a five-time World Series champion and the Yankees' all-time career leader in games played, hits, stolen bases, and bats or you are part of the Indian Space Research Organization's(ISRO’s ) historic Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM); groundbreaking revolutionary ventures and lives involve risk and fear, both of which are overcome because of a cause and purpose and drive and end grander than the two(i.e risk and fear).  Ambrose Redmoon captures this timeless truth beautifully: "Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all." 

The very reason why the quest for fearlessness might be foolish is that fear in a way is essential for growing and living. There is a kind of fearlessness thrust onto people sometimes involuntarily which causes them to jump from tall buildings, take their own lives from nooses, and lie on rail tracks with oncoming trains; a fearlessness which many times shares a boundary with a rabid tiresome fearfulness. That boundary may symbolize the point where the individual becomes tired of being fearful and takes the plunging leap into a blinding fearlessness loaded with potential to stifle growth and steal lives. Fear is a part of our living and it is fear which triggers that extra speed you never knew existed when you are being chased by a stray hungry lioness; it is the fear of not meeting a deadline which unleashes that never before known genius just in time to save the day; it is the fear of mediocrity and not living up to ones fullest potential which is the shot in the arm, nudging you to go the extra mile, think an extra thought and stay an extra hour so that you can begin to scratch the surface of the fully blooming you. I am not referring here to the kind of paranoid fear of fear or just plain fear which paralyzes action, suffocates loving trust, courts inactivity and triggers that kind of caution which has condemned many to lives never really lived. 

To walk a path never before walked, to grope in space never before explored, to venture into areas never before embraced, to engage the kind of revolutionary change which leaves a mark and advances the world for ever, a fright might ricochet down your spine as you take the necessary risks and first steps of that daunting path, but you need to realize there is something at stake way more important than that fear itself. Through an informed realization you must give yourself permission to be free from the fear of fear, to realize that great feats were not achieved in the absence of fear but through an overcoming of fear rooted in a cause bigger than ourselves. We must learn to embrace and tap into our fears and channel them towards a never ending better which fully celebrates the best we can be. Become a rising star!

© September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

Freedom to be yourself… Kim Kardashian butt - a medical request!

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It is indeed true that the utopic and perfect definition of freedom, the kind of freedom which allows one to do as one pleases, anywhere one pleases, anyhow one pleases and in complete disregard of anything or anyone else is a far cry from reality, a pipe dream, a delusion, an illusion as real as wishing to live forever. Even in the freest of societies or spaces inhabited and co-inhabited by mankind, the basic expectation is that our freedoms hinge on a moral and human onus and lore predicated on the fact that in exercising our freedoms we cannot deny others the right to the same. In a weird sense any restriction to freedom is a contradiction to the inherent purity of a free concept itself. Nonetheless as practically as possible we can to a certain extent be free.

Today we live in a world so full of noise and voices clamoring for influence and attention, voices beckoning us to be like Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, Hillary Clinton, Thomas Sankara, Barack Obama, Martin Luther King Jr, Bobby Kennedy, John Kennedy; cultural voices pulling us to hip hop and towards the fitness of Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger, pushing us to seek the handsomeness of Denzel Washington, the beauty of Marilyn Monroe, the sophistication of Angelina Jolie, the cool suaveness of George Clooney,  the fame of Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Bob Marley, the idiosyncrasies of lady Gaga, the swag of Jay Z, Beyonce, Lil Wayne and Rihanna; the grace of mother Theresa, the piety of the pope, the feminism of Emma Watson, the riches of Bill Gates, the genius of Einstein, the poetic prowess of Maya Angelou, the love of Christ, the vanity of extremists; voices insisting that we should be this or that; voices entreating us not to indulge in that or that; religious voices dragging from many directions; tribal voices screaming for a place under the sun; voices shaping societal mores and the expectation that one must be a certain size and shape, that one must be a certain figure eight, shaped like a guitar, that one must transform their abdominal folds into six and four and eight and one packs or chocolate bars; voices which encourage us to get into this or that job because of its financial remuneration; voices rejecting us; voices accepting us; voices which demand marriage of us at all cost; voices commanding us to all be firsts, voices which demand of us to get into this or that profession; voices which have bullied and cowered what and who most people are into a place and space of perpetual hibernation and a constant quest for something conforming, accepted, boring, and suffocating, something totally alien to who they really are.  Today we live in a world where people can show up at the hospital/clinic and request a Kim Kardashian butt, Jenifer Lopez youth, Tina Turner legs and any anatomical manipulation conceivable, a reality which only some years back, in this same century was impossibility. As technological advancement expands the borders and boundaries of human possibility, without proper care it steals by the very same token something quintessential about the authenticity of humanity and it is increasingly demanding ceaseless doses of extraordinary courage to be our authentic selves. More than ever before mankind needs to find a way to quiet the noise enough to hear and heed that still small voice with the power to introduce and reintroduce us to our real selves.

Central to human freedom is a society which allows human beings to be themselves. There is a reason why the rainbow in the collective beauty of all its colors eclipses and dwarfs the individual beauty of the colors constituting the rainbow as stand alones. Will you find and tap the courage to be yourself, to pursue those dreams you were born to pursue, reach those heights you were born to reach, touch those lives you are here to touch, learn all those lessons you are here to learn through experiences both ugly and great and countless interactions with fellow man? Will you find the strength to keep growing and to be that person only you can be, to be the best you are and can possibly be, focused like a laser beam on maximizing your strengths and minimizing your weaknesses. You must never apologize for doing so. That is the one way by which our collective humanity is celebrated and advanced and God is glorified.

© September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

I am pregnant

Oh yes I am pregnant,
A pregnant man can be repugnant,
But this is different yet not indifferent,
Pregnant with a thousand different ideas,
Ideas too critical for still births,
No, they must be born with care,

Arrrrrrrh the birth pangs almost kill me,
I am in labor with no midwives attending,
I need a thousand different birth canals,
Ink the size of ten thousand oceans,
To indelibly capture the burdens of my mind,
On the tablets of human hearts,'

I am very pregnant and until I birth these babies,
I shall have no rest, no peace!
The amnion is broken,
Only birthing labor will free me!

© September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

The Naked Truth And the Freedom To Pursue It

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Lord Tennyson says “…Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:

The deep air listen'd round her as she rode,

And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear...”

I still remember standing  before the lady Godiva clock in Broadgate, Coventry, UK, waiting for the clock to chime the full hour and usher in Lady Godiva on her hourly naked ride and  wondering what would have made a noble lady of great standing with an arguably very good heart parade the streets of Coventry naked on her horse. One of the many tales of Legend has it that her compassion for the people of Coventry was so enormously immense that Godiva despised the shame and contempt of doing so in order to convince her husband, Leofric, the 'grim' Earl of Mercer and Lord of Coventry to relieve his subjects of the crumbling heavy tax burden  imposed on them. Today in her honor, she comes out many times a day and rides naked on her horse… you can see her here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRZ5BZemk4M

As I stood there I couldn’t help wonder how the drama of lady Godiva which unfolds every hour as she comes out naked on her horse symbolizes in metaphoric power, a truth that is significantly more profoundly empowering when it is naked.  Just as with her nakedness she despised the shame and overcame the powerful tide of tax oppression which enshackled the people of her day, when one begins to unmask and undress any perceived and tailored and clothed and veiled truths one begins to know an encouraging power that only the naked truth can give. When the truth is nude, bare, with nothing on, stripped, unclothed, disrobed, unclad, undressed, uncovered,  undraped, exposed, stark naked, there is something unbelievably invigorating about it and there are few things more powerful. 

Backed by the naked unvarnished truth we can be launched into many places from solid ground. I believe that our Freedoms must be inextricably bound to this all too important freedom to pursue the naked truth and to know its charms, liberating strength, catapulting power and beauty; where ever it may be found.

It was Eleanor Roosevelt who said that “No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.”  This kind of beauty is endearingly and powerfully enduring. How drawn are you to the naked truth?

 © September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

More precious than my iphone 6

His names was Hughes,

Favorite subject of my muse,

Met him on a boat cruise,

He was one of the many crews,

His father and mother were Jews,

Through his service I made him pay his dues,

All the way from Havana to Santa Cruz,

From then on we went everywhere in twos,

Like the inseparable gander and the goose,

We would go running and get wet in the morning dews,

It was hard to tell who’s whose,

We navigated our way through many religious don’ts and doos,

Caught in an affectionate loving which let love ooze,

Before you feel like you want to be in my shoes,

Let me tell you that after a while it was all a ruse,

Out of nowhere the love structure lost many screws,

Will all its falling parts desperately in need of glues,

With the folly of many ewes,

I refused to listen to the warning views,

I refused to heed the shouting clues,

I had waited for him in many queues,

As I queued I denied to take the cues,

While I waited I drowned in booze,

To check and reign in my anger fuse,

Encountered many a bruise,

Bruises which left me in many blues,

Certain the bruises will help me choose,

So I let the pain of knowing Hughes,

Give me many lessons and life-long choosing clues,

The news is that I am better and getting on another cruise,

The next adventure more precious to me than my iphone 6.

© September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

Freedom, mental, physical or both?

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When one pauses to look at the greatness which has every once in a while been forged behind jail walls in the course of history, one is tempted to wonder if it is not indeed possible to be within the confines of tall walls with guards and be more free than those without the same. It is even more tempting to flirt with that question when one looks at the iconic Nelson Mandela who had the effrontery to turn down release from prison until certain conditions were met. He was keen to ensure that his core principles and the heart of the things he stood for, the very things which brought him to prison where not compromised. He was released on his own terms not just from a prison of physical walls but also from that jail of a heart which harbors hatred and bitterness. He himself captured it beautifully when he said: "As I walked out  the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind I'd still be in prison."  

Today as the scales of justice swing like a pendulum and the sword of punishment swings teasingly over the head of Oscar Pistorius, I am left wondering what kind of tumultuous emotional storms he has to weather, whether  he harbors any hatred and bitterness towards himself, whether he has or is capable of forgiving himself for his planned or unplanned(we may never know) atrocity even if the justice system acquitted him of every charge. If Oscar Pistorius ended up in a jail of physical walls, will the family of Reeva Steenkamp ever be able to purge themselves of the bitterness and hatred which naturally should ensue from circumstances so inexplicably painful? Is it possible that irrespective of Judge Thokozile Masipa's ruling,  in end some will remain trapped in the jail of a heart which harbors bitterness and hatred? What does it mean to be free? Is it a physical or mental thing or is it both? Is it possible to be physically bound and yet be free? Is it not possible to walk freely yet with every step walk with or towards an imprisoning entrapment of bitterness and hatred for self or others, rocked by mental and emotional agony of proportions so epic one would prefer to be trapped within the tall walls of a prison cell? What does it really mean to be Free?

Brussels © September 2014 afesehngwaHilary