There is no complete freedom; we only have a choice of negotiating what freedom we get. There is only partial freedom and that partial freedom is bought by being a partial slave.
She had found herself in the walled city. Well, it wasn’t really a walled city, but it sure felt like it. It was an un-walled city but who says only physical stone walls keep you in? It was work that had brought her there, away from the ways of life and comforts of habits in the home she knew. The temptations that kept here there were a bit stronger than the desires that wanted her out of there, and the fact that she believed in good luck – if you stumble upon it, better hold it with both your hands. But the partial freedom she bought was at a heavy price of being a partial slave. The comforts of life were bought at the price of binding her hands to this, whatever this was. She had first noticed it when she realised that she was lying, a bit shocked at her lying without any real need. Looking at it more closely, she found that she wasn’t really lying, she was approximating and in that she was way off the mark from what she meant to say. Approximating because her speech, in words and body language, were really like looking up the translation dictionary and working up sentences. The irony did not miss her, in the language she had learnt from birth, she spoke in idioms, in metaphors and all those figures of speech; she spoke in patterns she had built up unconsciously, walking down the path she knew nuances and subtleties, but that did not let her break free – she walked down the same path, over and over again. She said the same thing with all the nuances and all the subtleties. Breaking free, she bound herself again and again.
There is no complete freedom, the choice is only in deciding what you allow to bind you – and then that partial freedom is heavily bought.
(PS: This is introspective not autobiographical - in case anybody is worrying about me :D)
2 comments:
To speak technically, using metaphors literally and evading truth without lying is a common things in this world. Some do it to salvage their self-respect. Others to keep the sanctity of their beliefs or emotions.
The world however has grown cleverer, for people analyse both the metaphorical and the literal meaning of the stated and truth emerges with or without effecting the sanctity of the emotions.
I think you are talking about this piece being autobiographical. I wish I were a more creative writer, but I can somehow never really jump out of my skin.
Everything that I write is most often something that I have experienced in one way or another. The reason why this piece is not autobiographical is because it is not put in context and in proportion to everything else that constitues my life, which i believe is a necessary requirement of an autobiographical piece. Putting a fringe thought in the centre and vice versa does change the picture, and does become creative in a sense.
I wish what you say about people growing cleverer was true for the world in general - but fundamentalism does show that, unfortunately, you are over-estimating our fellow beings!
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