CAN WE REALLY LIVE 100 % FREE?
Freedom — the wish of many. Embattled, longed for, mortal and immortal at the same time. How many people have died for it?
FREEDOM. Some days I long for it endlessly, other days I could puke just thinking about it… This word radiates more than it seems. I’m sure everyone defines freedom differently.
Here is an excerpt of how freedom is defined on Wikipedia:
Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one’s purposes.
In my twenties, I was still striving for a normal life: I wanted a well-paying job. Maybe a boyfriend someday, just no husband or children, no too close ties or obligations! My own family was already causing me more than enough problems, why create a new one that would cause even more problems?
I didn’t want to be able to imagine in detail how my life would turn out. I secretly wished for happiness and contentment in life.
It didn’t take a year, I was working as an industrial clerk for a global company when I realized that I wouldn’t find satisfaction this way.
Job, money, lifestyle — I lived just like everyone around me. And I was just not happy!
After a short time, I accepted the fact that maybe I was just a freak and turned my life upside down.
I was newly in love and had learned to know and love a natural life through my new boyfriend, who lived in a tiny farming village in the middle of a natural wasteland.
I stopped putting on makeup, I stopped coloring my hair, and I stopped painting my nails. Gradually my taste changed when it came to clothes. From the business outfit, I slipped into wide pants and shirts, comfortable before chic! Nobody demanded it, I did it out of myself. Helped renovate old houses, worked in the garden (I have/had a panic about spiders…), and loved being able to really slog it out in ancient work clothes.
By getting rid of all those little things I had needed in my life, I noticed a new feeling in life: freedom.
Since I no longer needed all this ballast, which I never perceived as such before, I suddenly felt light as a feather! Ready to conquer the world without needing much luggage for it!
I quit my job and we emigrated. West Africa, Togo. No more health insurance. No net and double bottom, as we Germans are so used to and like to have. Just life, with tropical diseases, in the middle of the bush, and 50 different ethnic groups in one of the poorest countries on our planet.
There I learned the difference between our earth in one fell swoop hard, I banged full-on:
We all live on one and the same planet, and yet, scattered all over this earth, you feel like you’ve landed in a different universe….
Why do children die there in Togo, if we in Germany throw food daily into the garbage can?
Here according to careelite.de:
How much food was thrown away in Germany in 2020?
We throw about 1.3 billion tons of food into the garbage can, while at the same time about 700 million people do not have enough to eat.
In Togo, I learned that freedom can also be a process. I admired every farmer who worked his field every day and fed his family with it. So simple. And yet so meaningful.
I saw village youth flocking to the capital, craving education, and recognition. I know that education is incredibly important in our world. But I also saw many times that a young man who would have been quite capable of working in the fields more than his old father didn’t pick up a hoe after living in the capital, Lomé, for a few years.
I’m not saying that everyone is like that. But I’ve seen it many times.
Education is important. Enlightenment. But when we deformed ourselves, we no longer pick up the pieces. We no longer care about the “unimportant” things in life. We feel destined for higher things — whatever that may mean.
I remember my family as being oppressive. She made me small. The boss of my first job as a waitress made me grow because she trusted me when people said I stole money when I didn’t. She made me feel good about myself. She gave me self-confidence.
My driving instructor was like a father to me, whom I desperately needed at that time. At the age of 17 without a permanent home. Working late every night after school to even be able to pay for my driver’s license. He gave me peace and confidence in myself that I too could do something.
I waited tables for 1 year just to be able to afford my driver’s license.
And you know what?
I don’t regret any of it. It was good for me. I was working towards what I wanted. The driver’s license was a door to freedom again. It made me mobile.
And now?
I broke a lot of rules that I once imposed on myself.
I’ve seen how many advantages life brings me just because I’m German by birth. I am allowed to travel almost everywhere — a Togolese is not.
Women’s rights? I almost feel ashamed of that when a German woman raises her finger accusingly... How many countries are there in this world where women are worse off than in Germany?
I have lived on the path of autarky and self-sufficiency already real extremes. I had already physical deficiency symptoms due to long-lasting bad nutrition. I was seriously ill because I refused to fly to Germany to be nursed back to health by German doctors. Togolese people can’t do that either…
Now I have several changes of country behind me, have tried many things. I still fail at one thing:
Myself.
I don’t do enough to be free. I think too much to be able to be. I worry too much. I don’t trust enough, neither others nor myself.
I would like to be a true friend, companion, mother, and aunt. If only I knew what exactly I have to do for that….
I am afraid that we will all become puppets. The whirlpool of news and world events is so big and overlapping that you can’t stand it anymore. We try to take the pressure off ourselves by listening away. We can’t help it, because we don’t know where to start because of all the construction sites.
But is that right? Is this life?
How much of my life should I use for others? And how many for myself?
All those motivational proverbs and precocious tear-off calendar statements I could really kick in the ass sometimes.
“You can do it!” Yaaah, thanks, you me too….
As long as I make myself dependent on my environment I am not free. If I make myself completely free and independent from my environment I am selfish, right?
You see, it is and remains difficult!
