Sidewalk Conversations
My shadow has been following me since I was a boy
Skimming along the concrete in the orange streetlights and cicada nights
Faithful enough
To forget
Now he’s got a jar
Collecting things
Whispers
Figments and fragments
things he’ll never understand
Crushed leaves of once familiar plants
Fragrant in the tropical dusk
And keys to houses long gone
He holds up the jar
Lit by a fresh catch of July fireflies
“Look.”
Happy July 5th. Did you let freedom ring yesterday? I was DJing for my senior buddies, and closed the show by standing on a speaker to read the last bit of the Declaration.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Then I almost fell off the speaker, ended the program, did another, and all the while, thoughts rattled on, a marble in the washing machine. The poem above isn’t “real”, only an illustration.
The word Freedom persists in documents, whispers, declared aims. I’m not sure what my point is today, save to articulate something that’s on my mind–and in our conversations.
I keep thinking I’m no expert. (In anthropology, psychology, in, in…cue the Sam Cooke song!)
But then again, sometimes the experts crash into light poles with such savage authority that it knocks out power to the whole block of thought for a good while.
In lieu of answers, I’ll send questions.
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
Unalienable rights. Amen. Ideas to build a nation on. The kind of freedom bought at a dear price, bloody, always thirsty.
I’ve been younger before, and seriously asked why can’t we all just get along?
You know, if only everyone would eat tofu, play some music together, have more parties and less brawls, and seek to understand. Embrace the Josh worldview, and it’ll all be a jam.
The men in veteran hats shading their war eyes kept saying Freedom isn’t free.
According to young sage Josh, maybe it could be. (You know, something hiding in plain sight that only I was smart enough to see.)
The thread on my sterling empathy was first tugged by an ungrateful homeless man in Philly, and a few history books. Now I sit here among a pile of shreds, a fallen saint, shivering, realizing I’ve been offering a thirsty nation saltine crackers.
Flannery O’Connor puts it best: Tenderness leads to the gas chamber.
I had been wrong. Again. At least that’s no longer a surprise, but the unseen punch still startles. There’s always a blind spot.
Oh, the politics and friendships lost ostensibly over cardboard talking points…couldn’t they be boiled down to:
How do we set up a society in which people thrive?
Freedom vs. Utopia
Freedom–the paid sort–seems a necessary arena in which humanity can thrive?
What is thrive?
Making decisions and accepting the consequences seem a cornerstone.
It’s not leisure. It’s not fun. It’s not experiences. Or at least that’s what I’ve seen on the Alzheimer ward.
My story audiences sit in luxury, listening to hired entertainment between prepared meals, watching movies and having staffers answer their every need.
“Uh, can you buzz me out?” I ask the nurse.
She holds her pendant to the lock. Strains of Beethoven float down the hall.
“There you go.”
I’m back to the real world, heaving a sigh of relief, off to negotiate with a bookstore and have them ignore me.
The ability to fail is everything.
Young friends, peers, folks ahead of me all chant about Freedom to do whatever we want.
“What’s your life goal?”
“Freedom.”
But what then? And the consequences?
If Freedom (the paid kind) is a walled city to keep out Tyranny, that seems foundational. Nobody wants to write The Gulag Archipelago again from experience (and without paper). That must be bought with blood, and occasionally renewed. (How much? Depends on all of us.)
Are we striving for a bubble within that city? Something free of consequence, and as such, are we building ourselves an Alzhimers’s ward, a cell padded with bucket lists and serenaded with stale TikTok dances from better days?
In a push to create a Utopia with no sharp edges, are we abolishing the chisels that we might use to sculpt a better tomorrow?
The push for radical inclusion, each concession making the howling worse, is surely nuanced and multi-factored. One facet catches my glance, and seems to fit here.
I will do whatever, no matter what, and you WILL accept it.
A raised eyebrow has cut me down to size before something crueler did. Do we ban the consequence of skepticism and hurt feelings at a grave risk?
Self-care, supposed spiritual or emotional needs outweighing reality, seems another example of willed freedom without consequence. The opposite strikes me not as self-flagellation or Twitter beatdowns, but clarity and honesty. (Oh, what a pain in the neck.)
Are we aiming at a Utopia with no gravity?
Is there a difference between the paid Freedom and this?
What happens when we’re done with our bucket lists?
What would we do with the time to do whatever we want?
What will quench our thirst?
Paid freedom is worth dying for. Is this other freedom even possible to live for?
What are some other options?
I know some of you have answers. I’ve got glimmerings of ideas myself.
But today, I’m just asking.
Happy July 5th. What are we gonna do about it?
Look at the question that I think you are asking backwards. Freedom is not free, but young sage Josh wonders if it could be. The fact is, freedom costs those who crave control over others their power, ability to manipulate and take advantage of. Consider the "cost" of freedom to the anti-Josh and the reason freedom has to be something to fight for, and often at high cost, might become more clear.