Freedom to me is like wall paper, we know its there but we pay it no mind. It is the single most thing we all abuse and take for granted in some form or fashion. Being in the situation that I am in is what it took for me to realize not only how lucky I was, but also how fragile freedom really is. Becoming a man and having my freedom taken from me gave me a great appreciation for it and a whole new perspective on life.
Our daily routines are filled with so many different freedoms that many other people are not so lucky to have. It becomes almost like a given that we don’t look at these freedoms as just that, FREEDOMS, to learn, comprehend and respect the history of all the BLOOD that was SHED, the TEARS that were EXILED and the SWEAT that was PERSPIRED in the name of freedom is what helped me appreciate freedom as a whole.
We become disillusioned to the fact of how fortunate we are to have every freedom that we are acclimated to having due to our own ignorance and because most of us never had these freedoms taken from us. We don’t have a second thought about how fortunate we are due to that is what we expect for no other reason than they’ve always been there since we’ve been children. Just to open your eyes to some of the basic freedoms I miss most:
to shower when I want, take a bath, swim in a pool
to get up and check the fridge
to take a walk to the cornerstone
to get a haircut whenever I want
to kiss my spouse, children or loved ones before bed time
to be there at birthdays, graduations, weddings, child-births, holidays, promotions, anniversaries and funerals
to wear whatever type of clothing
to ride a bike, drive a car, roller skate, skateboard, motorcycle
to have my sense of style taken
to smell moms cooking, bakery’s baking, restaurant’s cooking, BBQing, ball park popcorn, a cars exhaust, gas fumes, street tar roasting, the ocean, scent of women
to hear children playing, construction workers working, sirens blaring, waves crashing, dogs barking, familiar voices
to have a breathe of fresh air and watch the sunrise or sunset
to pet a cat or dog, or be accompinied by one
to eat what I want, when I want
to vacuum the house
to spend casual time with my loved ones
to sleep in a real bed
to play video games or on the internet
To try and achieve some of those freedoms that I miss most I live my life vicariously through other people. One of the few things that gives me solace is knowing that the one freedom that could NEVER be taken from me is the freedom I have in my mind. Being in prison I still have the freedom of choice, there is a lot that goes into the decisions that I make everyday for one main reason and that is I know whatever the outcome of the decisions I make could ultimately affect if I ever have a shot at freedom again.
Of all the choices I can make the one that I pay most attention to is being the person that I want to be. At the end of the day is there any greater choice anybody can make in life? In a strange but good way I am freer now that I have ever been. I’ve been through a lot and learned a lot along the way. So just appreciating the few freedoms that I still do have gives me the inspiration that I need to keep going.
B. 13 years in, 31 years old.
I feel that people do take "freedom", what little of it we really do have for granted. It's easy to do, because we assume that simple things like choosing to press the snooze button on our alarms are just things we are entitled to. Yet, our freedoms can be easily taken away. Not to mention that our freedom are truly limited if you actually think about it. I feel that this is exemplified in the book "Into The Wild", written about a man named Christopher McCandless. Christopher decided he was to give up his worldly possessions and live off the land, he gave up his car, his money, and only kept what he could carry with him. On his trek he wanted to kayak to one his destinations, he came to find that there was a waiting list to be able to kayak down the river he meant to use.(I can't remember the name of said river) He thought this to be ridiculous. Isn't it? Are we so controlled that we can't even decide to take a walk down a park or kayak down a river without having express permission to do so? Maybe that seems silly to you but to me it just feels like, out of all the things to control why that? Why a waiting list to go down a river? As for being in prison, I have never been but I imagine it makes you see life and freedom so much more clearly. You don't know what you have until it's gone. I agree with the inmate that the only freedom that we will always have is our freedom of choice within the mind. We can freely think and no one can take that away from us. It's scary though, to think about how many freedoms are taken away from us all the time. We allow it to happen because we don't even realize it IS happening. Such as school, it is illegal not to have some sort of schooling, this is a choice that is taken from us and we just let it happen because we think it's normal.
(part 1) I have never taken into account how much of a luxury freedom is because since I’ve been here it was just something that was a given. I often take my freedom for granted because I have never been in a situation where my freedom was in jeopardy. But now as we come to the topic of freedom I realize just how lucky I am to have this privilege that was not always available to many people. For example slaves didn’t have the freedom to seek education, or choose how they worked, they didn’t have the freedom to take care of and protect their loved ones by every means necessary. Living in the world that I do now I realize just how lucky I am. I can choose whether or not I want to pursue a degree to further my education, I can choose where I work, I decide what I will do on a day to day basis. Everything in my life is my choice and this is not the case for many other people. There are many people today who cannot say they have freedom, their lives are controlled by others. Such as prisoners and people who still experience different forms of slavery. Prisoners still have some freedoms but not like we do out in society.
(part 2) But I want to really go into this topic of freedom. Honestly as a citizen my freedom is still limited. We as citizens are still controlled to a certain extent and this is necessary to keep order in society. But there are some ways that society influences us and our choices so are we really free? If society and government can effectively find ways to influences our behavior actions and thoughts about certain things then they also influence how we go about making choices and therefore we are not truly free we are acting the way that society has influenced us to. If they control that then they can influence us to believe that we are free and the choices we make are our own but in reality we think the way they want us to think and they control us in ways that we are not even aware of. So are we really free?
Although, people have many different views on freedom and interpret it in many ways I would say that his take on freedom is pretty interesting. I like how the writer sees freedom in a mental way and not so much in a physical aspect. One can take its freedom for granted and don’t really appreciate what is around us. People go days, weeks, months, and years without observing what is around them. Not only that but the simple things in life that seem of no importance. As the inmate realizes the things he misses from the outside worlds that are just the smallest things in our everyday life. After reading the letter I thought about the many things I am able to do without even thinking about it. And all the joy that brings to my life, all experiences that shape my life. On the other hand from what was talked in class we are not completely free because of everything that comes behind us. All of that shapes and changes our decisions that we make in life and our environment. Most of what we do is not completely free everything that we do is shaped by someone or something we don’t always see. As the person in prison misses all of those things from life he might not see that they come from memories he had. Those memories were moved by other people and a different mindset. He states that he has reached in a way mental freedom, but at the same time they are in way choices of other people. I think that you can have many different opinions and point of views that support him or go against from what the writers thinks. Even though there are different sides one can’t deny that it gets one to think even just a little bit about our everyday lives. And about all the simple things in life we take for granted and go without noticing them. It is sad that sometimes are freedom has to be taken away in order to realize the simplicity and joy of life in this world.
Freedom seems like one of those things that you don't realize how lucky you are to have it until it gets taken away. In this context I am talking about physical freedom and not sociological/psychological freedom, as they are slightly different.
However, his second paragraph makes me think a little. I've always wondered a little when people say that our freedom was fought for. It was, in a sense, but I think the British would have allowed us to take a bath when we would like to…? Even in the most unfree countries on Earth, such as North Korea, have basic freedoms. They too can take a bath when they would like, they can get a haircut, see their family, and so on. While North Koreans might have some more difficulty going about these things (water/electricity may be turned off, there isn't enough food in the refrigerator, their family is outside of their village/city/in a labor camp, etc…), they have the ability to at least try. I think it's kind of interesting he seems to say that these basic freedoms are fought for, while the only people who seem to lack these freedoms are prisoners. I'm not saying that I don't care that people fought and died for this country, it just the whole "fighting for freedom" thing doesn't make much sense to me.
But besides that, if you couldn't tell already, I definitely do take my freedoms for granted. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be a prisoner for life, especially starting at the young age of 18. At 18 you're still mentally a child, and only a sliver of your entire life has passed by. It just seems crazy losing that all when you've barely began living. For this reason it seems like life in prison is actually a harsher punishment than being executed, since you basically are just waiting until you die. It makes me wonder what this guy will be like 10 more years from now, or 20, or 30, or maybe even 50 years from now. Would he still be alive? Would his views on freedom change? Would he as a person change? There’s something kind of crazy about spending your entire adult life in prison. It makes me wonder what he did, and how many bad things he did when he was under 18. I’m interested in what this guy is like as a person, I think it would be cool if he wrote about his life.
As we live our day to day lives we over look our constant choices. They can be as simple as crossing a street of choosing to walk through the hub instead of walking around it. However until the majority of our choices are taken away we wouldn’t even notice them. After reading this it’s interesting how the seemingly mundane actions taken throughout the day are what someone with limited choices and freedoms. Some of the things listed I would consider a nuisance. For example hearing children playing right now would be a distraction for me right now while I’m trying to write this blog post. Vacuuming is something also I couldn’t normally see myself missing. Having the choice to not vacuum and play videogames or watching TV I see it as boring in comparison. Lastly blaring sirens serve to only make me pause and look out my window for a moment. I never stop to think what if this was the last time I heard these things. In normal situations I wouldn’t think of these ordinary smells like car exhaust, gas fumes, or street tar. However after years of only having the sterile smell of a government prison and a stale bunk I could easily find myself missing the smells of walking down a street in New York City or the smell of the water in Annapolis’ bay. As I sit here and wonder what I would miss if it were all taken away from me one thing I’m sure of is that I can’t hope to imagine some of the seemly random smells would be. One thing the inmate does point out is that they can never take away the freedom in your mind. If I were in his place I would most likely take this in the direction of drawing anything really just to escape from the monotony of being locked up. I could also see myself writing, poorly of course, but writing never the less. I can’t begin to imagine how I would react if were put away for life but reading this puts an interesting perspective on the things we take for granted.
Freedom is a concept that many believe we know but in reality have no idea what freedom really is. I feel the phrase “you never really know what you have until its gone” is a great summarization of how the author feels about his freedoms. We take so many basic freedoms for granted everyday because we don’t realize at any given moment they could be taken away from us. The authors list of the freedoms that he misses really open the readers eyes to how luck they are to have many of these freedoms. The author lives in a place where every move that he makes is controlled or monitored by other people. Many of our simplest freedoms like choosing when to go to the bathroom are now controlled by another person.
As citizens of the United States we also fail to see that we have so many freedoms by just living in America. Other places in the world do not have some of the freedoms and choices we can make everyday without a second thought. Places like North Korea are deprived of simple freedoms like disagreeing or having an opinion. Imagine taking someone that grew up with all these freedoms and putting them in such a hostile element. It would really be a mind blowing and life changing experience just as the author has come to appreciate his old freedoms. As people we always tend to neglect what we have and only see its true value when it is no longer in our grasp. It is hard to value such simple things when you have been around them and see these freedoms as an everyday normality and not a privilege that should be cherished.
In a way the author said he learned to be freer in prison than in the outside world. He values his own free will of mind greatly because he lacks the simple freedoms from the outside world. His one sense of true freedom keeps him strong and going through his hard times in prison. Although he can no longer swim in a pool or walk around he still has his freedom of self to keep moving him forward.
My heart was full of deep emotion after I finished reading this blog. “What does it mean to be free?” This question was one of the toughest questions I have ever had to think. However, I can say I am free right now. This man’s answer to this question helped me realize how fortunate I am again. When I was in high school, I used to think “I want to be free. I want to be anywhere but here.” Looking back on those feelings now, I have an impression that they were too vague but I also think I was trying to figure out who I was and what my life was at that time. Now, I have made one of my dreams come true. I am studying abroad in America. Yes, I am living my little dream right now. I am experiencing a different culture. I have plenty of opportunities to look at myself from a different cultural perspective. I am struggling from expressing my feelings in a foreign language. I always get nervous before I go to class. I have got somebody to love who cares me all the time. I enjoy putting my make up every day to make a smile on his face.
These are ones of my freedoms. Being nervous and having a language barrier are maybe negative things in general. However, regarding negative things as freedoms is also my freedom. This man writes that “We become disillusioned to the fact of how fortunate we are to have every freedom that we are acclimated to having due to our own ignorance and because most of us never had these freedoms taken from us.” I totally agree with this line. I have no idea what it is like to live my life without any freedoms because as he said, no one has taken my freedoms away before. Freedom is like ‘wall paper.’ However I also think it is easy for us to realize and appreciate our freedoms.
Actually, how many people realized that they are ‘free’ again after reading this man’s opinion? At least I did. I think it is easy. However, keeping it in mind is difficult. We are living a busy life. Our life is full of ‘freedoms.’ There are a lot of ‘invisible strings’ that shape our behavior and opinions. These facts must be hard to deal with sometimes. However, I found that being free is to make not only something enjoyable but also something hard as our reasons to challenge and enjoy our life. It was so hard to explain my definition of freedom but this man helped me feel free to write down my feelings.
I am very curious to know why he chose to murder someone at such a young age. He pointed out that he was driven by fear but what kind of fear could affect him so much in order to do such a terrible thing? It is obvious that he expresses deep remorse and regret for what he did, and I can not even begin to understand the courage it took for him to meet two family members of the victim. Although he seemed very excited to meet them and felt it would renew his sense of being by sincerely apologizing. He was also prepared for any sort of reaction from the victim's family members and knew that it would be healthy for them to get it off their chest. This man has pretty much spent his whole life in prison so he had a lot of time to think about exactly why he would have made the decisions he made. Its hard to picture yourself in their situation. He mention how he embarrassed his family with his actions as well as made a bad name for himself in his community. That is a lot to live with. Even though you may not be right there to feel the guilt and embarrassment but it is still there. As a college student all I can think about is how the hell I am going to get through each and every semester and make my parents proud. I do not give myself the time to really think about who I am and reflect on my life and how it came to be the way it is today. In prison there is not much to do so I would imagine that you spend a lot of your time thinking about yourself. I truly do not appreciate the freedoms I have and even though its burdened by responsibility it is still a very huge plus. Every day I am shaped by the invisible strings and for the lifers they were shaped in other ways that placed them in the cold, dark walls they are in today. Yet they are still the freest people I have ever met.
It in inevitable that even the most basic freedoms known to mankind are taken for granted. As we’ve stated time and time again, some liberties have become so innate in our lifestyles that individuals cannot even fathom the thought of existence without them. And so they don’t. Nobody stops to think for a second about their right to hit the snooze button four times before waking up or their freedom to choose to brush their teeth first, or perhaps a take a bath. All of these exercises of basic liberties occur before breakfast, yet free society is blind to such minute yet unnoticeably valued liberties. Then we consider the mindset of a prisoner, who has been removed from the blind side and forced to recognize what life without such seemingly insignificant freedoms feels like. This, as we see in the article, ironically has a way of truly exposing an individual to freedom; that is, freedom of their mind. When one is removed from the lifestyle that they have acclimated into so much such that they pay no mind to freedom, they experience a newfound understanding of what it means to be free. Unfortunately though, it may be too late for them to utilize such enlightened thinking in the real free world. The reality is, therefore, that we have the truly free individuals locked up in prison. The free citizens who are trapped in their inability to truly grasp how fortunate it is to be free are actually quite the opposite of free. We are fish that do not realize we’re in water, and therefore do not appreciate the multitude of overlooked liberties that add to the value of our lives. In this outrageous sense, it seems as though prison is actually the tool that allows an individual to see the free world. Who would of thought the institution was capable to spurring such intricate thinking. If only free society could find a way to really understand what it means to be free, we would all appreciate the value of life on an entirely new level. And truth be told it’s the simplest level of freedom when you actually realize it’s the freedom in your own mind.
I am completely taken back by the fact that a kid so you could be so lost in the world so early and also that his absentmindedness lead him to do such an unforgivable act such as taking someone’s life away. This though really makes me realize how lucky I was to have a such a childhood where I had found my niche in my surroundings and was not concerned about trying to find myself. At that age, you always see some kids who could be considered to be “lost” and know I wonder if any of those kids were near the brink of committing such a heinous act as the one that was committed by the writer or even near the point of taking their own life. The kids that are lead to have such hard lives are obviously influenced by their surroundings, which is such a shame that kids so young have to deal with such terrible things. The people around him were the type to not even want to try and nurture him and maybe allow for him to come out of that terrible state of mind. As with the other stories, it is again refreshing to see that this person has come to terms with what occurred in their past and has moved on from that. This individual having the courage to meet the friends and family of the individual that he murdered, shows how much this person’s character has changed over the years. Listening to those individuals pour out all of their different emotions as they scream and cry must have been almost the equivalent as hard to take as killing an individual. The thoughts of those people must’ve made him realize how much of an impact the decision he made when he chose to take the life of another human being. As I read though, I wondered how many murderers actually regret their decisions to do such a heinous act and wish that they too had the opportunity to meet the loved ones of their victims and if that would have even gave them a sense of forgiveness or relief. At least with this individual he can now live the rest of his sentence with a sense of relief.
Like I’ve been taught in middle school, there’s no absolute freedom. Any kind of freedom is under some rules. So, even prisoners have a degree of freedom. This article made me reminds me of The Shawshank Redemption. After people been put into prison for many years, they will get used to it. Even they probably the least free among us in the literal sense, make millions of independent decisions a day. They choose what to read, what jobs to get, how they do them, how to speak, what to say, and most importantly, what to think. They can also feel freedom mentally. For us we not only can’t realize how free we’re but also, in most of the time, we prison our heart by ourselves. So some people may think we are not free enough and they fight for some “freedom” that never affects their daily life. Like the fish never been taken out of water, they don’t know what freedom is. As Sam said, freedom is you wake up every morning, get up and brush your teeth, wash your face etc. We may not feel them, but they are freedom in our daily life. …….this is part 1…….
….When talk about freedom, people would like to compare different countries. I’ve been live in China for many years. Generally speaking, freedom in China is limited by government to many aspects. Some website can be banned by government, like Google, Facebook, Twitter… All the media are controlled by them. But people in China are tending to think they’re free. About 30 years ago, China is just like North Korea today or even worse. So they can feel the freedom, actually more freedom in their life. Deeply in their heard they think they’re free. Only few intellectual can see the problems. And when they tried to let more people to know the fact, they may threatened by government. For example, Liu Xiaobo, 2010 Noble Prize winner, is currently incarcerated as a political prisoner in China. The Nobel Committee awarded Liu the Prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China". One of the most important human rights is freedom. But now he have been deprivation of freedom because of he’d fight for it.
Overall US really is the most freedom country in the plenty. Here is the the land of the free and the home of the brave!
So many people take all of their freedoms for granted, failing to see how fortunate they are to have the ability to do simple, everyday things, such as the ones mentioned in this article. They go about their lives, worrying about trivial matters instead of realizeing how lucky they are to live their lives the way they want to. For example, a normal person doesn't wake up and think to himself, "I am so lucky that I have the freedom to wear any shirt I want" or "I can't believe that I'm allowed to go on a walk around town." This ignorance may seem like a bad thing when you think about it in this way, but it is simply a result of the society we live in, and because we live this way every day of our lives, it is no one's fault that we take for granted our numerous freedoms. However, as it is made clear in the article, when these freedoms are taken away by something such as being put in jail, it is only then when we realize how important they really are to us and how fortunate we are to have them.
In jail one is told what to wear and how to wear it, where to go, what to do, and when to talk. This inmate reflects on all the liberties he once possessed, and although they may seem unimportant to us, they make a world of defference when they are no longer available. If we oculd live the life of an inmate such as this man, if only for one day, I belive that we would all have a greater understanding of what it means to be free, because living that way would give everyone an appreciation for the everyday freedoms that we take for granted. However, these actions and liberties that we have outside of prison are only external freedoms, that can occur outside of our own minds. One can make the argument that living in prison for an extended amount of time can actually make someone more free.
I believe this to be true as well. In jail you are no longer under the constraints of society, and many of the invisible strings that were attached in a free world are cut, giving the prisoner a totally different outlook on life in his mind. If we could learn to have this mindset, completely free from worrying about what others think, we would live much happier and much more free lives, whether as inmates or free people.