Freedom (to Live a Normal Life)

Sing, O Muse, of the rage of this new American Dream...

Independence Day, the Fourth of July. Our original day of liberty.

What's more American than freedom? It's just: the timing’s not the best anymore…

Arriving as it does today in the shadow of a far greater festival.

That long celebration of liberty: Pride Month (The Month Formerly Known as June).

To value whatever, do whatever, live however, be whatever we please…

A month celebrating life without limits – need we another day of freedom?

Are we not entertained? And empowered? Yet still some dream of a greater freedom…

Freedom to find solid ground in a world gone mad. Freedom to get a grip, slow down.

Freedom from permanent emergency, from the current thing. Freedom from the churn.

Freedom from societal disintegration, instigation, acceleration.

Freedom from everything getting worse, every year. Freedom, Lord, from change-makers.

Freedom for boundaries to rest undemolished, definitions unmolested.

Freedom to maintain a nation; borders even too? Freedom to have a culture.

Freedom to pass on, and to inherit. Freedom to remember, and to cherish.

Freedom to put down roots and grow in peace. Freedom to sketch foundations, build in stone.

Freedom to raise a new generation, who know more than just nonsense and fear.

Freedom for children to be children again, and for adults to become adults.

Freedom from the deliberate corruption of all that is healthy and wholesome.

Freedom from a riot of obesity, fluorescent hair, piercings, bad tattoos.

Freedom from the ugly being glorified. Freedom to know beauty's latent call.

Freedom from being told that nothing is happening, and that it’s good that it is.

Freedom from glamour and gaslighting. Freedom to trust our dangerous, knowing eyes.

Freedom to see the truth, speak the truth, live in truth. Freedom to touch reality.

Freedom for the personal not to be the political. Freedom for friendship.

Freedom to joke, or to remain silent. Freedom to disagree and stay employed.

Freedom from manias, and wild-eyed witch-hunts, and hyperventilating zealots.

Freedom from the mobs. From narcissism and spittle. From clichéd chants and Molotovs.

Freedom to pause and take account of all that's been lost, delegitimized, destroyed.

Freedom to still trust in something: neighbors, institutions, equality of law?

Freedom from dysfunction. Freedom to hold the unaccountable accountable.

Freedom from boundless corruption and incompetence. Freedom, Lord, from bureaucrats.

Freedom from the arbitrary, asinine, absurd. Freedom from this world of clowns.

Freedom to breathe sanity again. Freedom for seriousness, and for laughter.

Freedom for the stoic, the honest, the kind. Freedom to laud ordinary virtues.

Freedom to focus again; to sit and read – not the Times, but the Eternities.

Freedom to know the joy of an ordered mind: still, deep, and clear as a mountain spring.

Freedom from apps, algorithms, ads, trackers. Freedom from life determined by data.

Freedom to meet in the flesh; to see eyes, and make them – to bond over something real.

Freedom for relationships not mediated by the cold hand of the market.

Freedom from commodification, disenchantment, and dehumanization.

Freedom from drones and black box AIs; from gene drives and immortal billionaires.

Freedom from others' mad hubris. Freedom from viral gain-of-function research grants.

Freedom from theories. Freedom from utopians, and from social engineers.

Freedom to say no thank you, I will not eat the bugs, I will not live in the pod.

Lord, return to us all the freedoms that have been taken by our liberators.

To a new birth of freedom: freedom to live a normal life, to remain human.

Freedom from our collective upheaval. Shall this be our cry of revolution?

Then let freedom ring. Yes, let freedom ring!

Let freedom roll down like cleansing waters.

¹

1. Sorry, I don’t know how this somehow became something so grossly poetical. That wasn’t my original intention, but after writing “Freedom” too many times in a row it just sort of happened. I’ll make sure it never happens again.