Long-Awaited Freedom

We all strive for freedom. It’s one of the most basic and core wishes of every single living being. The sense of being able to do and say and think what we want to do and say and think. Why should someone be judged or stopped based on superficial thoughts and beliefs? Someone’s skin color?... Why would that matter?; How someone dresses?... Why would that matter?; What someone likes?... Why would that matter?; What someone believes in?... Why would that matter? All of these things seem so inconsequential in the grandest of schemes.

To find true freedom is to live in a world where every single person can walk around without fear. But that fear has been - very unfortunately - intrinsically engrained into everyday society. People, all across the globe, have had to live in fear and doubt of their own beliefs and wants because other people around them would push them down and persecute them, as if what they did and believed in was wrong. We’ve seen it before with the LGBTQIA2S+ community, and it’s only really been as of very, very recently that they’ve started to get recognition and appreciation, and love; which they all deserve and have deserved for a very long time. However, simply having to look a bit further than our own tunnel vision view on everything, and it’s absolutely soul-crushing to see the total amount of persecution around the globe, simply because these groups didn’t wish to “conform” to a norm placed upon them by individuals who had nothing to do with - and don’t know anything about – their community.

Subjugation. Suppression. Tyranny. Cruelty…

Oppression, in this day and age – or in any age – serves zero purpose, in this aforementioned grandest scheme. Simply to satiate one’s own power-lust, these oppressors put people down. But, in no way will the oppressed take it in stride and walk away, heads bowing to the autocrats. We’ve seen it many times in the past. The Native Americans, who used to roam the very lands we live on, freely. The African People, who used to live freely on their own native lands. And now, with the Ukrainian people who were simply living their day-to-day lives, freely. All of this oppression on the basis of pure lies and falsehoods, all for what? In this particular case, an inconsequential need for power and a fear of losing it. When pressure is put upon a set of people, the only thing left to do is to push back, and stomp your foot, and say: “we won’t take this.” And, if they don’t listen? Yell louder! Yell until it hurts! Yell to the world and let your voice be heard. Stand for what you stand for and don’t back down, for the only way to stop them is to show that however hard they might try to bring you down, your spirit and your own will to live life and live by your people and your culture and all that you stand for, will never break in the face of their tyranny and cruelty. A people's will alone can face down the long barrel of any catastrophe.

And that’s freedom. Being able to stand for yourself, your people, and what you stand for. That is a true definition of freedom in our world. The want, the wish, the need to live in a world at peace; in a world without fear and horror. That is the requirement for freedom in a world that often seems to feign ignorance. Together we are strong, together we can stand up and shout, and together we can face anything if it means we can finally gain our long-awaited freedom.