When I was in grade school at Ascension, I would often gaze out the window. This was the peak of the Baby Boom, early ’60s. With so many students in each class, the nuns couldn’t keep track of everybody, so I got away with it. I liked school, but was more fascinated by whatever was going on outside. People on the sidewalk or in their cars on their way somewhere. They seemed free as opposed to being stuck behind a desk.
I wondered what it was like to be free. Truly free. School was regimented, the school day full of rules. Summer was freer, but we still had to come in when Mom called and when the streetlights came on. No negotiating. I thought it must be wonderful to be an adult.
Now I know that the adults in the wonderland outside my classroom window were probably wishing they were free — from cares and concerns, errands and chores, appointments and responsibilities, the friction of life. Most of us don’t lead friction-free lives where we do only what we truly want to do. For one thing, not everyone knows what they truly want to do, so total freedom looks overrated.
There’s a difference between being free and feeling free. Being free is when you have nothing you have to do — and the opportunity and wherewithal to do whatever you want to do, which includes doing nothing in particular. But feeling free doesn’t necessarily follow.
In moments when we find ourselves “free,” there is a certain amount of “Now what?” We feel more secure within the confines of our life — like Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks, who used to look around the “friendly confines” of Wrigley Field and say, “Let’s play two today.”
Nonetheless, the desire for freedom seems hard-wired within. We desire it even if we don’t know what to do with it when we get it.
There are two kinds of freedom: responsible and irresponsible. Responsible freedom doesn’t come at the expense of others’ freedom. Irresponsible freedom is D. Trump sitting on the tip of the pyramid, having exploited an already corrupt system to the point where he can pretty much do whatever strikes his fancy. But it comes at a price, like any deal with the devil: it makes him the loneliest person in the world. Not many would trade places with him. If you’re incapable of love and no one loves you and no one sympathizes with your plight, you have achieved the most terrible freedom of all.
So limited freedom looks a lot more appealing. Freedom isn’t free were told, but the limitations that come with love are liberating. That is the paradox of responsible freedom, our return on love’s labors found.
Just as we can’t be happy all the time, we can’t be free all the time. What it would take to attain that totality wouldn’t be good for us or anyone else. Happiness comes only in small doses, as does freedom.
FDR’s famous “Four Freedoms” include freedom from want, and freedom from fear. But “freedom from” only gets us to the place where “freedom to” begins. It’s up to us and our creativity to use those moments for fuller living. For some, it’s travel. For others, it’s gliding downhill on a bicycle simulating the sensation of flight, or enjoying a picnic lakeside with friends and family, or taking an entire afternoon to read a good book.
Looking back on those classroom moments, the people I wondered about probably weren’t feeling free, but I was — free enough to imagine what life might be like for me when I was older.
Free enough to walk home in the gloamin’ collecting fireflies with my eyes and inhaling the perfume of linden blossoms
Free enough to keep good company in the morning with songbirds
Free enough to know when to accept and when to resist
Free enough to tell people what I think, if I think it might make a difference, and even if it doesn’t
Free enough to listen to someone who disagrees with what I believe
Free enough to enjoy being with others who enjoy living
Free enough to wish I could free the wind when it gets tangled in the trees and feel grateful when it grazes my cheek as it passes
Free enough to recognize what’s good for me even if I didn’t choose it
Free enough to laugh in the face of bullies and console those facing sorrow
Free enough to notice the elderly couple who walk circles in the park and never seem to run out of things to say to each other
Free enough to feel eternity in a Saturday morning and peaceful repose in a Sunday afternoon
Free enough to lend a hand or extend a hand or hold a hand
Free enough to see the goodness in people before they leave us
Free enough to see beauty where I didn’t see it before
And free enough to keep gazing out the window, and wondering.