Freedom is like Love. It’s a good idea, but one so vast that human beings are incapable of comprehending it. 

Like the universe. 

Like God. 

We are not designed to understand these things in their entirety. This is why we gravitate to soundbites that simplify our ideas of these things. 

It’s why “fake news” works. 

It’s why we go to meetings every week where we are told to “love each other.” 

It’s why politicians can spin lies—and somehow get away with it.

And it’s why we are in this mess. 

Human beings are simple-minded and are easily had with manipulative narratives that appeal to what little we actually know about a thing. What little we are even capable of knowing. Politicians understand this. Successful ones use it against us. 

Wake up. Go to work. Pay taxes. Do your job. Come home. Drink beer. Watch HBO. Go to sleep. Repeat. If someone doesn’t follow this formula, they’re different. Bad. Vile. Socialist. If someone doesn’t have the same skin color as you, they’re bad. If someone doesn’t have the same sexual preference as you, they’re bad. If someone practices a different religion than you, they’re bad. If someone speaks a different language, they’re bad. If someone goes to college to even begin to learn to think, they’re bad. If someone reveals a scientific fact that doesn’t align with what you believe to be true, they’re bad. If someone aligns with a different political belief, they’re bad.

As a result, that which is good comes down to people who look like, act like, and believe like we do. Only.

This is not freedom. Not of mind. Not of nation.

Until each of us accepts how little we actually know, we will never rise above the state we’re in. We will never be free. 

We are all simple-minded fools who are incapable of wrapping our minds around big ideas. And so the trick in dealing with them is having the humility to accept them as being bigger than anything we are capable of truly understanding. Bigger than any bucket we can conveniently shove them into so that our simple minds can rest at night. Until we swallow our pride and get humble enough to realize how little we know, we’ll never escape this mess … and the mob with the most guns will be in control. They think. 

Freedom indeed.

Open your mind and heart and take ease in accepting that in the end, nothing really matters except for the most idealistic thing we will ever experience in life, and yet never truly understand—Love. 

***

Jim

Killing the Clock
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Jim Mitchem

Writer. Father to daughters. Husband. Ad man. Raised by wolves. @jmitchem on twitter. First novel, Minor King, out now.

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