My Freedom is tied to yours!

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My freedom is inextricably bound to yours. This is one of the theses which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., espoused in his “I have a dream” speech on August 28, 1963. It appears to be one of the things which many a great freedom fighter agree upon. Nelson Mandela also expressed it when he said: “For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

Through and by a design which was orchestrated independent of our will and consent from the creation of time, we share this world and the earthly space we inhabit. Advancements in science and technology are increasingly facilitating our ability to move around and shrinking the distances which separate one end of the world from the other. We are now even daring into space and areas of the universe uninhabited by man.

When we look around today it is not hard to come to the undeniable conclusion that a threat to freedom anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere. It is not hard to see how a lack of freedom in parts of Ukraine engendered a recklessness which has consequences that have now stolen the lives of citizens spanning many countries around the world. It is easy to see how the seeds of extremism are spreading around the globe, from the Middle East to Africa and the Americas, threatening the ability of every single person in the world to live freely from the palace of kings and presidents to the poorest persons in the hamlets of the hinterlands, in church and out of church, in schools and you name it. It is hard to think of a place on earth where one can run to certain freedom. A lack of freedom like disease knows no boundaries and nobody except in folly can claim a disconnection from a threat to freedom anywhere in the world. We cannot turn a blind eye to it and must be concerned by it.

Central and core to the concept  and pursuit of Freedom and the ability to be free is therefore a security that in doing so we allow others and give them permission to do the same. While this may not be easy I think we all have a responsibility and need to go about living forward towards freedom with a consciousness that we are not robbing fellowman/woman in the process. In a weird way my freedom is inextricably tied to yours and yours to mine. Let us make a genuine effort to live it out in a manner which reflects this. Is this possible? Now that is the million dollar question.

©anhilaire

Freedom Thoughts

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I lay on my back, peering at the ceiling, trying to rest from a long day's labors when I suddenly wandered into a mental space where my mind settled and wondered, contemplating what it means to be free, what it has meant for me in the past, what it means for me now and what it will mean going forward. Even though some of the madness in the world today seems to have been with mankind for a long long time, the world is truly becoming stranger than fiction. The flip side is that it makes any semblance of sanity and normalcy look liberatingly miraculous and maybe can trigger a greater sense of gratitude for the things we take for granted,like just being alive - it is not a given, it really isn't. When freedom is introduced into the equation it becomes even more interesting and exciting as freedom in every sense and every meaning it conjures appears to be as vague as it is a rabidly strong desire. 

Being alive and free is even less of a given, it really is. Countless men have pursued freedom, whatever they perceived it to be and many have lost their lives in the process, paying the ultimate price, making the ultimate sacrifice. Out of a keen desire to be free myself I look forward to spending a lot of time on the topic of freedom with you, exploring it, dissecting it, looking at all its possible facets and hopefully inching closer towards knowing that holistic freedom which mostly eludes us, in the process. 

As eloquently captured in the picture above the plan is to either get free or die tryin! The eloquence of the art in the picture also tells us in unmistakable terms that it is not all pretty and smooth and flawless, that irresistibly attractive pursuit of Freedom. 

Once more welcome to CreedofFreed and let the ride begin.

© anhilaire

Do not be afraid to dream!

My dear child,

Do not be afraid to dream,

It is the loftiness of the apparently impossible,

That hitches to and revs the engine of untapped potential,

Powering it with an indefatigable hard work,

Towards the apparently unattainable,

Until the impossible and unattainable,

By passionate drive become possible attainable reality.

Brussels © September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

Screaming to be a woman!

Consistent through her glamorously public life,

Was a tricky and painful scream which no one heard,

One which rose from a place no human eyes could see,

One drowned by the caterwauls from within and everywhere around,

Inhuman calls to be this and this and this and that,

Calls to be a perfect woman, a perfect wife, a perfect sister, a perfect cousin,

A perfect niece, perfect employee, a perfect human being,

Superhuman extractions only fit for God,

Calls with an inviting diabolical stir,

All along she screamed screams drowned by all the noise of life,

Screams so dulled by the bedlam of life she couldn’t heed herself,

She wanted to just be a human being,

To be a woman,

The best one she could be,

She wanted permission to be foolish and unserious and silly sometimes,

Permission to be unwise and unrealistic and annoying sometimes,

Permission to be good but also to be bad and ugly sometimes,

Permission to be fallible and vulnerable and weak sometimes,

Permission to be naughty and broken and imperfect sometimes,

She was screaming for just one thing, one thing, just one thing,

To be a human being,

Not a goddess!

Brussels © September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

A friend indeed!

His name is Fareed,

He is a friend indeed,

A friend in need,

One who is not shy to lead,

One not too proud to concede,

He’ll  bring the tourniquet/band aid when the heart does bleed,

One always ready to sow a hopeful seed,

He helped give our friendship a selfless creed,

One which allowed us to choke our instinctive greed,

When our friendship is as fragile as a feeble reed,

He’ll help probe the friendship area/aspect we need to feed,

And sometimes all it needs is an apparently trivial deed,

Like saying I’m sorry or going slower than the current speed,

Many times from my folly I have been freed,

Because he did run to me to plead,

To be sure I swallowed my pride and heed,

The call to rid my life’s garden of a certain weed!

Brussels © September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

Patriarch

I had never met him,

He stepped into the metro,

Wearing an aged glorious crown of white,

His infectious smile lit the coach,

That sun from his face shone at me,

Unconsciously my tired face muscles loosened,

From my heart I looked at and greeted him with a smile,

He settled to sit,

Then hesitated and staggered to a sit by me,

Shook my hand with a father’s assuring hand,

And was just as happy to share,

As I was happy to learn,

Without warning nuggets of wisdom dripped from his lips,

Like honey from the honeycomb of experiences to many to count,

I sat by him, transformed into one big ear,

Soaking in all he could share in the short ride,

Hating that I reached my stop so soon,

The joys of riding back from work,

With the man on the clapham omnibus,

Real people in touch with real life,

One of us,

But a patriarch of our humanity.

Afesehngwahilary, © 2012

Be yourself

Be yourself.

In a world where perception is everything,

The image you portray who you are thought to be,

Choking and caving,

Under the burden of being what society’s defining us to be,

Ushering in the mighty great tragedy,

That many go through this world,

Living a life foreign and alien to who they really are,

And may never be known for who they are,

Even by themselves,

Against all odds and by all means,

Be yourself,

Let somebody teach you,

And pour the best of them in you,

In the process,

Giving yourself permission to do the same,

But be yourself,

For the best you can give the world,

Is the very best of you,

Remember that whoever you are,

Even that person you are trying to be,

Even that image you’re so desperately trying to project,

No matter who you are,

Every once in a while,

And maybe ever so often,

On these sometimes perilously agonizing corridors of life,

You’ll still meet betrayal from those considered friend and foe,

Open rejection or silence pregnant with spiteful disgust,

Entertain an unwelcomed   encounter with pain and heartache,

A broken heart,

Even in the midst of the possibilities of countless pleasures of life,

Small and big,

Remember above all,

That the delusive fog of inevitability,

Is spawned by the poisonous seed of pride,

And no matter who you are,

No matter what you do,

No matter how cavalier and noble,

Wretched and despicably wicked,

Though obligated to do right by man,

Even when that breath of life is gone,

As Robert Frost so impeccably captured,

In three words which ring with truth,

Truth of unfathomable depths and breadth and height,

When he said to sum up everything he’s learned about life,

“It goes on”,

Inevitably,

Unavoidably with or without you,

But while you are here,

Humanity can be better because you lived,

Do the world a favor,

Be yourself,

Boldly, courageously, unapologetically.


afesehngwahilary, may 2012