Wikigirl 2 //PJM

Chapter 30

Freedom. A word souls have lost their own selves just to obtain it. Nations have painted streets in red just to claim it. Humans would endure anything if it meant that in the end, they could have it. 

We are creatures that starve for freedom. It's so essential that we seek it from the moment we come into this world. There is no war that we wouldn't fight for it, there are no chains that could keep a prisoner for long. No cells, no ropes, no shackles that could hold a soul back from getting his freedom. 

Our past history is full of actions undertaken in the name of freedom, of victories that have enabled humanity to now leave in a free world. All bad that has ever imprisoned someone in any way has been defeated yet can we claim that we are free?

There's an enemy that holds us all tied up, one that is not concrete nor it falls on the light of evilness. One that to break free from will take much more than you spilling blood, much more than you tearing flesh and taking souls. What truly holds us from our own freedom, is love itself.

Or to state it better, it's the ones who we love and the ability that we do love to begin with. Our chains are made from care, are polished with worry and empathy and are sealed with the strong feelings a human being can have for another. Your parents wouldn't like you if you do this certain thing, so you don't do it. Your friends like you more if you behave a certain way, so you keep behaving like that. Your lover shows so much more love to you, when you are in this certain mood or when you have this certain attitude. As we go through life, we are bound to learn that everyone we know has expectations of us. 

 They want the best for you, and they will go ahead and project that version they have in their head that they think it's the best for you. Because of love, because of care, they will do their best to make you follow that road they deemed the best for you. They will take a portion of your freedom, discard your will, your feelings even, for a goal they deemed better. 

Shackles build on good intentions are still restrictive. A cage made out of love is still a cage. And what is funnier is that those are the chains we never fight against, for we love back the ones that are caging us. We give up our wants, our dreams, and our own identity, just to be in a way someone else wants us to be. Because we love them, we want to see them happy, and thus we remain prisoners willingly. We chose to live as someone that will make them proud instead of living as who we truly are in our essence.

No one would call you a coward for that. The majority of humanity is chained to such. However, there is a distinction that can change one's life forever. The ones that get to realize that despite their sacrifice, in the name of love, they still haven't been loved at all. For they have become things that they are not. They have been playing roles, creating different versions of themselves, running, trying, and fighting all their lives to get to the goals someone else set for them. Only to understand that even when they accomplish all those aims, even when they have won that validation out of those loved ones, even when they have managed to make everyone around them happy and proud with their success. They all belong to someone that is no longer you. 

The you that isn't like your parents want, the you that isn't like your friends think that you are, the you that your partner has never seen. The you, you with your own two hands, shamed, imprisoned and hide in order to get love. That one that is truly you, was chopped, and masked, was erased and used and ripped apart. That you got lost in time and died alone leaving behind the shell of a soul that no matter how much anyone loves him, they will never feel loved.

For people love freedom, only when it is for themselves. For just as natural it is for us to have free will, that much natural it is for us to crave control. Over anything, anyone. Life and people alike. We are like birds in a cage, trying to chain the ants that came by in our lives.