fag of freedom flying

I'm preparing to reenter the workforce and dread it. Work feels like slavery. "I'm gainfuly unemployed," I once said after quitting a demoralizing job.

When defining slavery and employment, I'm slippery between synonyms. Slavery is bowing to work under threat. There are also dire consequences if we don't work for money: a life of poverty and severe limitations on where we go, what we eat, medical attention, friends, etc. We don't use the phrase wage slave to be ironic -- we often believe and behave as slaves. I gotta, I must, I haveta.

If working for money is the opposite of slavery then freedom is money, or freedom can be bought for money. Maybe we can agree money buys power. Let's shake on it: the opposite of slavery is not freedom but power.

When I shout "I need freedom," I euphemistically intone, "I want power." Wanting power is not a bad thing. I need control over objects and influence people to get food, shelter, etc. But we are nice people and will keep saying we want "choices", "liberty", "freedom" -- while blithely hoping for pain-free and fear-free circumstances.

If there is a state of freedom -- IF -- it is the belief that I can make pleasurable choices. I say pleasurable because I can't ignore the positive emotional exudation of the word "freedom". It's abit like a religion; there is no freedom without belief. When we believe we are free we become factories manufacturing choices. Just watch me, I can, I will, why not?

But I'm no believer. I can't believe in abstractions. The best I can do is pull on a persona of hope. And I'm not playing cynical; masks restore damaged skin.