Freedom; the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.

What is Freedom really? The state of a nation? The liberty that your parents grant or do not grant you? Another over rated word that has been hyped by the new generation activist lifestyle? Is it God? Or is it Satan?

Actually, it is none of the above. It is purely a state of your own mind. It is the Psithurism on a breezy day. The euphoria from the wind tickling your cheeks. The gurgling laughter of an innocent child. The next stage, from letting go to moving on. It is the state of mind where you are a somnambulist, and there is nothing to stop you anymore, nothing between you and your goal, not even your own conscience.

Freedom is neither good nor bad, it is never in white or black. Just like the rest of the world, it is full of infinite shades, ugly to one, appealing to another. It is both light and darkness. It has myriad natures, natures that can only be defined by you.

Freedom is you letting yourself act, speak, think, and be different. It is loyal yet thrifty, wise yet naive, calm yet wanton. Does it come with responsibility? This question has two answers, both with two divergent consequences. But that answer does not depend on any manuscript or blog. It depends solely on you, for freedom is the raised bar in your own mind, not anybody else's. To be free, you first have to accept your freedom, embrace it with your entire being.

This was probably the reason why Indian National Congress declared India free on 26th January 1929, almost two decades before the national freedom struggle concluded; because it never was about gaining freedom, it was about embracing it.

Happy 68th Republic Day

#happyrepublicday #embracingfreedom

Glossary

• Wanton: wild

• Somnambulist: sleepwalker

• Psithurism: the sound of the leaves rustling as the wind blows through the trees

• Myriad: many