I realized this a decade or so ago.
I was looking for a brief way to describe myself on a profile page for a hobby, and I realized that the whole point of my life was to choose the road that represented freedom, more so than bondage. Freedom is a state of mind, not an objective state of being. I realized that I had more of it than anyone I knew. And my having it had nothing to do with money, nothing to do with how many people thought well of me, nothing to do with how much I followed rules or "supposed to" attitudes or behaviors. It had to do with with how exhilarated I was about my life, how I knew it was wonderful that I was in the world for reasons which had nothing to do with what anyone else was doing or saying, how despite external traumas and tragedies everything is all right. Realizing that my life was about freedom made me feel freer still.
About ten years ago, a friend I'll call Sheila telephoned me. "I have a favor to ask," she said. "I want you to point out to me whenever I say I'm going to do something and don't do it. Whenever I'm not true to something I do or say. I want you to be one of the people I can depend on to make me accountable." "Sure," I said, knowing this must be an assignment from the latest "self improvement" seminar. Sheila went to lots of those. I thought she was a terrific person and valued her as a friend. But, as she once told me, she felt she was "desperately searching for something".
As I suspected, I never had to point out any missteps concerning Sheila's integrity. For one thing, we weren't around each other that much. For another, it's likely that her mojo about following the homework from the latest self improvement seminar probably faded rather quickly, as did all the ones before. Funny how looking for answers outside of oneself rarely "sticks". It's the inner changes that leave a lasting imprint.
Sheila eventually moved away to the country and seemed a lot happier with interacting with locals and participating in the small town activities -- including a stint as a radio disc jockey, despite no training -- than she'd had while being a realtor trying to make more money for the sake of more money, as she and her husband were always better off than most middle class people I knew. In her new life, she was certainly free from needing others to hold her accountable, the latter of which inferred there was the possibility that she might do something "wrong".
Maybe thirty years ago, there was a man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he was arrested in Los Angeles for a murder he didn't commit. He was sentenced to life in prison and was placed in solitary confinement, in a small dark, tiny cell with a dirt floor. I can't even imagine what that must have been like, especially when he shouldn't have even been there in the first place. Imagine the anger! He said that the cell was full of ants, and they'd crawl all over him and bite him. Of course, he hated the ants. Since there was nothing else to do but think, he later described that he "started to meditate". He realized that he was the one invading where the ants lived. As such, he changed his point of view about them. Once he made that inner shift, the ants stopped biting him. He claimed that they gathered grains of food and brought it to him. His mind found freedom in the midst of his physical imprisonment.
Eventually, his wrong imprisonment was publicized and he was released. On the documentary that I saw, he was living in an old house with a gigantic ant hill in the back. He loved ants. They were the ones that had lit the way to his inner freedom in the wake of most horrendous external conditions.
I love doing physical things that intensify my inner feeling of freedom. Riding my bicycle is one such activity. Just 20 minutes around the neighborhood and I'm feeling the exhilaration of being able to go anywhere that I'm willing to peddle, of gliding along without needing to pedal at all when the wind is at my back. Driving to rural areas, where traffic is almost nonexistent, also fills me with an extreme feeling of freedom. The idea that I can just get in my car and go, and see all those open plains and rolling hills, with no visible end, which illustrate the endless possibilities of life.
Freedom is the greatest wealth there is.
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