Pondering the "F" Word

I stood on the sidewalk holding my "Peace" sign and watching the young man at the bus stop while he danced pirouettes to keep his hacky sack in the air.  Sitting on the stone bus stop bench, a woman who appeared to be in her early twenties read a book as she drank her Starbuck's from a paper cup.

The bus pulled up and a car across the way stopped for the red light, its windows down and Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" pouring into the air.


Hold me closer, tiny dancer...

How can anyone ever say that life is boring with all of this entertainment?

After a while, someone hurled the words, "Freedom isn't free!" across five lanes of traffic and into the ears of our group of Women in Black vigilers (and anyone else within a two-block radius).  I always ponder such outbursts, unoriginal as they may be.  I probably spend much more time pondering such phrases yelled at us than does the person pronouncing such profundities.  But I could be wrong about that.

Below is how my imaginary dialog with Yelling Man (YM) could go:

(Since I don't know what YM would say to my inquiries, I can't put words in his mouth.)

YM:  Freedom isn't free!

Me:  What do you mean by that?  Do you mean that freedom costs money?  Do you mean that freedom costs lives? The lives of our citizens who are sent to war and the lives of citizens of other countries?  Are you talking about money or lives or both?

YM:  Freedom isn't free!

Me:  Do you feel free now, knowing that people are dying all over the world while we spend trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on war?

YM:  Freedom isn't free!

Me:  I experience freedom whether or not we have people fighting in other countries.  Is freedom truly freedom if it's based on conditions?  Conditions that could change in an instant?  That doesn't sound very free to me.  I experience freedom while you yell at me, I experience freedom while our government watches me on cameras.  I experience freedom while I pay taxes.  On my best days, freedom isn't contingent on circumstances outside myself.  On my worst days, I suffer and think that my suffering is caused by others.  At some point, though, I usually wake up and remember the source of true freedom (or, sometimes, I have to ask for help in order to get my head on straight again). Then, I am no longer a victim.  Maybe when you yell that freedom isn't free, maybe you're forgetting and not having one of your best days?

Everything can be taken from a man but...the last of the human freedoms - to choose
one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. - Viktor Frankl

True freedom is always spiritual. It has something to do with your innermost being, which cannot be chained, handcuffed, or put into a jail.  - OSHO, Freedom: The Courage to Be Yourself

The truth shall make you free. - Jesus, John 8:31

I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth, and then simply doing it. 

– Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones