Freedom?

“It is better to starve free than be a fat slave,” is a quote attributed to Aesop of Aesop’s Fables fame, although its authenticity (and amazingly Aesop’s very existence) is somewhat disputed. Well, whoever said that obviously hadn’t tasted a burger.

We’re all a bunch of big fat slaves, irrespective of waist size, and we know it. We are slaves to multinational companies who force their products down our throats. We are slaves to a global mass media whose lies we swallow whole. We are slaves to organised religion. We are slaves to our own egos. We are slaves to ourselves. And you know what the best part is? We enjoy every minute of it, yours truly included.

That’s right. We have become such a commodity-centric species that our very survival depends on mass consumption of poison, lies and delusions on a daily basis. Isn’t that just great?

And then there’s the fact that we are so morally bankrupt that we think it’s okay to steamroll our way to a predefined, elusive ‘success’, losing whatever that is left of our integrity along the way. We don’t even realise that, in our almost indecent hurry to get there, we have effectively eliminated any chance of freeing ourselves from this bondage, this shameless servitude that we have the audacity to call freedom.

No, I did not contradict myself there. How can you ‘free’ yourself from freedom itself, you ask? The answer is you can’t. Why? Because you’re a slave; a slave to a psycho-physical construct the little red horned guy on your left shoulder wants you to call freedom, freewill, independence, or what-have-you. You’re not free. You never will be. Don’t kid yourself. ‘Freedom’ itself has you on a leash, bound and gagged. And you like it that way.

Don’t get me wrong; this is not paranoia talking. Heck, it’s what I want. How can I be paranoid about something I know I want, nay need? That’s just tosh. And I’m not preaching either; far from it. Why would I want to be a killjoy?

Point is, no human being on this planet is truly free till he or she has given up his or her quest for freedom. We spend all our lives looking for it; much like the knights of yore who went in search for the mythical white stag; but, unfortunately, few of us will ever find it. Reason being this ‘freedom’ we so desperately crave is, in fact, just another commodity, to put it crudely.

Mere rhetoric? Hardly.

Think about it: you have so many obligations to fulfill, so many goals and expectations to live up to, so much to accomplish that you hardly have the time to do anything else. That is why you have become a slave to the system, as a means of escape.

The food you eat, the books you read, the music you listen to is all part and parcel of that system. And you, out of sheer helplessness (inadvertently of course) have labeled it freedom. In other words, you have paid for that ‘freedom’. Hence my argument that freedom as we know it is a commodity.

Is that a bad thing, though?

No one ever said it was. Our species wouldn’t have come this far without it, and if we were to suddenly change things around (which, by the way, will never happen) we would stop ‘progressing’. We don’t want that now, do we?
Now go slave away please, and don’t forget the ketchup.
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The above is something I wrote a few weeks ago as part of work.