Freedom

Freedom is the freedom to choose, to try one’s hand at art, to pursue ones passions, to learn, unlearn, and relearn, to remain hungry, happy, and learning. For when a child enters the world, neither his school, nor his parents can influence his choices, nor can they take responsibility for his success, and yet, they are responsible for how well formed the child’s mind is, how well wrought his character is, and how liberated his heart runs.

Freedom is the freedom to make mistakes, the freedom to do what you fear and to fear what you have not done. The gateway to victory is paved with stones of defeat, and only the liberty to walk those frigid rocks of failure is what makes us worthy of entering our elysium.

This also implies that expectations of far off glory and grandeur only stains ones willingness to fail, when only failure can build character, and our character then, in nature’s own time builds our success.

Freedom is the freedom to ask why of questions that do not lend answers, but to question answers that lend themselves too easily. Only a curious mind engages in peeling open and prying into, in probing and pressing those questions which have answers yet to be found. A curious mind is not a pesterer, quite the opposite, it is a perceptor.

Freedom is the freedom to ask why not, to ask why something is being denied, why inequality persists, why justice is scarce, for seeking those answers early in school prepares oneself for seeking them later in life. To ask why not, is not imprudent, for to stand up somewhere, encourages us to stand up elsewhere, then habituates us to stand up everywhere. Dissent and disagreement today is only the beginning of debate and change for tomorrow.