Fear or Freedom
How would you feel if I told you my fear is a fear of freedom? Oh, but you’ve traveled and quit jobs and have scars on your body from mosquito bites in Sri Lanka? You would tell me this all while flashing mistrusting eyes.
I’d like to take you on a small journey, one not necessarily made of freedom.
We are on the banks of the river Ganga watching bodies vanish into smoke in one of India's three holy cities. You like to watch the German baba that has lived for 20 years in a plywood shack near your hotel and you have just figured out how to navigate the city's public transportation system, a series of tuk-tuks with government stamps and one small boat that makes a business of crisscrossing the river.
To find yourself in this new world you had to quit your job, the one that parked you in a nice office in front of conjoined computer screens for the past calendar year. See, you hate being in an office and the smell of those melty candle things your coworkers would plug into the wall make your eyes water.
In this new holy city of yours, you have vowed to swallow in freedom, not necessarily in those same words though. You never actually wrote that down but you devised a plan of becoming, I don’t know about staying, but at least becoming happy during your time in India.
So you may find it confusing when I tell you that on this happiness journey, you sought out a very similar office, except your in India so there are no pumpkin spice candle melters but mold on the walls instead, and you had one computer screen instead of two. And very similar to your situation before, you used the time you weren’t creating social media posts for a third party to research the adventures you wanted to take. You googled Nepal, and Bali and a road trip through Colorora for when you got home.
Also, you hate social media. Like really fucking hate it. You think it’s ironic that you have made a living talking about the mission of other people and organizations so they can go out and do the work you wish you were doing. You are a human stepping stool that organizations climb atop to ride the funding and advocacy pony. Oh wait, we are in India so it’s probably a donkey.
Now, how would you feel if I told you my fear is a fear of freedom? Would your eyes widen so I could see white above and below your irises? Would you nod your head with the bouncing motion of a little parott?
Yeah, you would. Most definitely.
In a period of my life that I had thought I dedicated to happiness, I sought out the very things that made me unhappy to begin with because unhappiness is what I knew and that knowing still lives in me somewhere. I think about my savings account that holds enough money to live off of for a year and I wonder why I am not using it to go back to India. I wonder why I am so good at working 9-5 jobs and cultivating my creative side feels a little foreign.
I can tell you why, if you're curious. It’s that little fear of freedom that lives somewhere between my heart and belly button. It’s a hard one to uproot and I desire to reach down my own throat and pull it out. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. To kill it I must give it light and air, like when blood starts to oxidize. In all of the decisions I make, I must open myself up to look at this small rooted thing and ask myself is this a decision of fear or freedom.
I’m pleased to tell you I only spent a few weeks of my time in India behind a computer screen crafting social media messages of love and light and the rest of my time was spent softly and cautiously touching cheeks with freedom.