When I’ve been away a few days, the first thing I’d do when I come home is to clean the house. I’ll give every corner a good dusting and mopping.
There was a time when I decided to clean the bird cage. I have always liked birds.
Birds symbolise transition or awakening. Wilbur Wright, the father of aviation said, ‘No bird soars in a calm’. It is about confronting fears and making circumstances work for you. Soaring birds take advantage of thermals and updrafts by flying in a circle. The rising air carries them higher and higher in a spiral. Birds that wish to stay aloft without flapping in normal wind usually fly into the wind for lift.
I had two budgies - one yellow female and one blue male. They were most delightful and they chirped merrily every morning. After cleaning the cage, I went to bed. The next day was one filled with anxiety when I saw that the cage was empty and the door was open. I had either forgotten to latch it or the budgies were so smart as to figure out how to open the cage.
Even though I had kept them as pets for years, the allure of freedom was too tempting.
What is it about the search for freedom that every generation gravitates towards?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his immensely powerful treatise ‘The Social Contract’ says,
‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’ Maybe that is what prompts every human to pursue happiness. No holds barred. Unhampered.
In freedom is a perceived higher quality of life. A life that is better than what was before. A life that is different from what we see around us. A life that is different from others.
Freedom is spun from a dream that chases after a vision. For some, dreams remain as dreams because it is safe to dream. We can be in the here and now and yet dream of being somewhere else. The only struggle is within which others cannot see.
Freedom is about taking that step towards the unknown in the hope of achieving something more. Freedom is the choice we make and the responsibility we shoulder. Freedom is being brave.
Vanuatu is an island paradise in the South Pacific. For 45 year old Nigasau who lives there it is all about freedom. He says he is the boss there and he can do what he wants and he can get anything from the sea. In an interview on BBC’s Earth Natural Wonders - Surviving with Animals, Nigasau says, ‘It’s free.’
Albert Hammond’s ‘Free Electric Band’ used to unlock a stream of unfettered dreams in the teenage me. It all sounded so wonderful to leave the conventional path of studies and a career ahead of me, only to pursue music and to live on bread and water with ’a guitar in my hand’. Teenagers crave for freedom and I wanted to be part of Hammond’s free spirited happiness. It sounded like an over the moon experience.
Listening to the lyrics many many years after I had trodden on the conventional path of studies and pursued a lovely career, made me laugh. I was extremely thankful that I did not give it up for music and the free electric band. They say that hindsight is 20/20 vision.
Uncle Ben Parker in Spiderman says with great power comes great responsibility.
I would like to think that with great freedom comes great responsibility. I believe in being free to dream and to realise the vision at all costs. I am not talking about irresponsibility, whims. fancies and wild dreams. I am talking about that dream that we hold dear. I would normally give myself a time frame to realise that dream and face the uncertainty. No ifs, no buts.
The budgies never came back and I never kept a bird as a pet again.
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE NEW STRAITS TIMES MALAYSIA ON 24 MARCH 2018 https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnists/2018/03/349048/freedom-dream
