Free Thinking

It’s interesting to reflect back on the mood towards the beginning of the pandemic lockdown in March. I shared a sense of wonder at the natural world, at the clean air, at the sense of human community reaching across space to support each other. I vowed I would work to make a better, greener, more inclusive and equitable world for future generations. I hoped that everyone would and that this lockdown would engender the opportunity to ‘fix the wrongs’. Armchair idealism.

The need for money, employment, food, social connection compelled us to reopen our economies and to ‘get back to normal’ even if that very normal is what is strangling us. And then came the tipping point: the lynching of George Floyd. If it had all started several hours later in the dark, empty streets, his death might have gone unnoticed as so many of his brothers’ deaths before him. But it was captured on camera in the light of day to be viewed by the world. A blaze erupted from smouldering ashes, the ashes of centuries of broken promises and of the needless deaths of African-Americans, but also from the statistics of a pandemic that strikes the poor, mostly minorities, more severely exposing yet again the social and racial inequalities that beleaguer the country.

The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.

Albert Einstein

Fortunately, however, this potentially divisive issue of racial bias in police brutality has galvanised support from people from both political parties and from all races and backgrounds. And not just in the US, but all over the world, people are realising that it is time to address injustice – whether it be based on race, sexuality, gender, ability, or privilege. It’s exciting but I think in order for deep change to take root, each needs to reflect on how one is tied into social norms on a daily basis.

As a teenager who grew up in Europe, I found myself in many ways an outsider in my high school in the US. I wanted so much to belong to a ‘cool’ group; I wanted to hang out with the ‘popular’ girls. These were the girls who could teach me the most about being American. These were the girls who epitomised America. And these, in my view, were all white. The blacks were a different culture, a minority culture making up at most 10% of the student body. In the dining hall they chose to sit together and as I passed them to fill up my plate, I almost always heard them laughing. In my four years, I joined them only once or twice even though we took dance class together for a year.

At the time I thought they preferred keeping their own company. I didn’t think of myself as racist in any way because I didn’t belittle or bully or make fun of them. Now I wonder whether my perception was one of convenience. I wanted to feel I belonged and I assumed that would be easier with those who shared my skin colour. But I never did fit in with the groups of white Americans and perhaps I would have felt more at ease with the other outsiders, my black classmates. I never tried because at the time, it didn’t feel ‘comfortable’.

I don’t fault my teenage self for wanting to fit in. I think that it’s a very human desire, the desire to feel part of a group, to feel valued, loved. The flipside to desire is fear, a fear of being hurt, shunned, alone. There are many innate desire-fear pairings (e.g.success/failure) and they can sometimes compel us to act in ways that do not benefit everyone equally. Even though we don’t like to admit it, our desires and our ideals can be at odds with each other. And these underlying desires are often manipulated by larger forces in ways that we play along with because we each have bought into a comfortable set of social norms and beliefs that support us.

The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.

Oprah Winfrey

It will be impossible to address injustice on a larger scale, however, without changing our own attitudes toward our need for comfort. Many of us feel entitled to what we own and although there have been cultures without the concept of ownership, in our globalized world today our standard of living is based on what ‘comforts’ we own and have access to. By comforts I mean not only material things but also systems that give us the peace of mind that we, and our comfortable lifestyle, will be protected. Employment, healthcare, education help to provide this, but so do insurance companies, financial institutions, government and civic institutions, police and fire departments.

Indeed, even with all this talk of freedom, almost none of us is free because we are tied into the giant machine of consumerism on which our economy depends and which our political system defends. And at the heart of this machine are the giant multi-national corporations who depend on us with our need for comfort to support their unstoppable desire to be at the top, globally and financially. This very desire is at odds with the ideals of a democracy with ‘liberty and justice for all.’

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Nelson Mandela

The other day, I decided to read quotes about Freedom by famous people. I thought I’d get a better perspective on its meaning – on a universal meaning. Surprisingly, what I found out is that freedom means different things to different people depending on the context. In a revolutionary sense, freedom is set against an oppressive government or set of laws. In human rights, it is set against oppression that seeks to curtail basic rights, that enslaves. Philosophically, freedom calls for individual responsibility. Religion regards freedom as being able to follow one’s belief. Spiritually, freedom is akin to letting go of emotions and possessions, a surrender to the spirit. The wealthy and powerful protect their freedom to live as they please, while for the imprisoned and impoverished, freedom is an opportunity to make an honest living on one’s own with equal access to housing, education, jobs, promotions.

Freedom is contrasted with ignorance, slavery, coercion, oppression, government controls, self-service. It is associated with happiness, responsibility, potential, independence, courage, respect, self-control, discipline, opportunity, inner growth, individual power, collective empowerment. In a sense, it has become so full of meaning that it has too little meaning. It exists as a value but one without a clear universal meaning. Each person will interpret it in his or her own way and use it depending on context.

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose, nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free.

Janis Joplin

So, in terms of “America is a free country” and “I’m free to do what I want”, yes, both of these statements are true, but the first is a platitude and the second is pedestrian. Everyone is free to do most things. I am free to walk down the street naked. I’m free to drink myself into oblivion or jump off a cliff or shoot a classroom full of school children. Being free to do something means only that you are free to choose to do that thing. It does not mean that doing that thing is morally right or won’t harm you or someone else. That’s where our decision-making capabilities come in.

May we think of freedom not as the right to do as we please, but the opportunity to do what is right.

Peter Marshall

We need to move beyond this vortex of discourse. It goes in circles and doesn’t serve us. Now is the time for questioning, deep questioning. Whether you believe that God challenges us or that Life challenges us – I think we can all agree that we are being challenged. These times are calling our thinking into question, calling the meaning of our values into question, calling our identity as human beings into question. When we have our needs met, we have no desire to stand up and question because everything is comfortable. When we are struggling to make ends meet, to not fall through the cracks, we have no time to stand up and question. Now the virus has exposed the underbelly of our collective conscience: national superiority, lack of protection for the vulnerable, inequality in how people are treated by our ‘systems’, deep-rooted anger, racism, mental illness, poor health. The list is overwhelming.

It’s so overwhelming in fact that lately, when I’ve tried to imagine our world in the future, even two or three years from now, what I or my children or grandchildren might be doing, I can’t. I mean I can’t see where this world is going. We’ve likely passed the tipping point in our degradation of the environment. Our leaders are losing touch with reality and the needs of the population. People are becoming increasingly polarised, unhappy and restless. The economic consequences of the coronavirus will push huge numbers of people into permanent unemployment and poverty.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and will never be.

Thomas Jefferson

It is interesting, though, how this pandemic is giving us the opportunity to think differently about life on personal, communal and global levels. For instance, wearing a mask requires ‘inverse’ thinking. We’re so used to wearing a face covering to protect ourselves whether from dust or the cold. Instead, these days, one wears a mask not to protect oneself but to protect others in case one is unknowingly an asymptomatic carrier of the virus.

At the start of the lockdown, J and I were washing our single-use surgical masks again and again. We only had two. Then an American friend posted a picture of a mask she’d made, the first time she’d ever sewed something. She made it out of colourful pieces of scrap cloth for a friend who’s a nurse because masks were hard to come by, even for health workers.

When I later decided to make a reusable mask myself, I found lots of instructional videos, almost all of them by Americans. One of the most useful ones I found, gave all sorts of suggestions of how to find and use materials in your home since many were following stay-at-home orders: coffee bag ties, electrical wires, hairclips for the nose clasp and braided string, ribbons, cut t-shirts for tying the mask on.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Plato

What has always struck me is that a lot of Americans have the ability to make something out of very little. Americans may take this for granted but it’s something that was picked up over the course of generations. When families are on the move or when they live in the middle of nowhere or when they are very poor, people have to make do.

Creative thinking doesn’t only arise out of necessity. It also comes from making a choice to jump into the unknown. Take a daily activity like cooking. I rarely follow a recipe exactly. I substitute hazelnuts for sunflower seeds, buckwheat flour for whole wheat flour, oregano for basil, yogurt and juice for buttermilk. Last night, with the fridge almost empty, I went out and picked nettles to add to a rice and onion omelette. Nettles are probably best known for their sting that itches for ages, but growing wild as they do and costing nothing, they were eaten all over Europe during the war and are highly nutritious. Following a tried and true recipe is a delicious safe bet, but it’s important to improvise. Any habit needs a bit of a shake.

Why? Because we are going to have to get mighty creative to get ourselves out of the mess we’ve created. And we’re going to have to start paying attention to our mistakes so we can learn from them. And we’re going to have to become more flexible if we want to survive.

Most of us have known that the world as we have known it could not continue on its current trajectory. Most of us have known that unless there were enormous changes that there would be enormous upheaval of one kind or another. And now we are in it – in that enormous something. And I find myself flipping between hope and despair. Hope that our collective human intelligence will find a solution to save humanity. Despair that our intolerance and animosity towards each other will destroy us. And I don’t believe that at this point there is much in between. Because if there is an in-between, it won’t last. So here is our freedom: freedom of choice.

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

Jean-Paul Sartre

We’ll need some blue-sky thinking to turn this world around. Let’s try turning our thoughts and habits inside-out. Can we do it? Like a double-sided jacket, we might favour one side out but there is the other side and if we wear the other side, it changes the day. Change starts with the individual – with me and with you, your choices and your decision to try something different.

Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

Mahatma Ghandi