freedom in chains

chains_4642freedom in chains

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking of late about freedom, and coincidentally this image passed in front of my lens while shooting something else….

What is freedom and who decides? If we are physically chained and repressed, then it is the repressor who decides. But if there are no chains, and we are free to come or go, say what we want, or do as we please, yet we don’t… who then, is the repressor? I for one refuse to be my own repressor!

Someone recently pointed out something about myself that was inconsistent with who I am, or who she perceived me to be. And it literally stopped me in my tracks, I didn’t know what to say… she was right! And no one was forcing me in to this… this inconsistency, it was self-inflicted. The chains were of my own making. I think we all do this to a certain extent, we stop ourselves from doing certain things that we know are not good for us, or not considered acceptable… and that is good, as long as we believe they are not good for us or unacceptable. But we also stop saying or doing things because of outside influences and sometimes we’re not even aware we are making these changes in ourselves. I recalled a time where I tried to live by the words of William Shakespeare, “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man”. I guess I had lapsed in this and had allowed others to influence who I was and as a result I was the repressor, I had put my own freedom in chains.

We are all free, we have the freedom to chose who we want to be and how we want to act, what we want to do and how we want to express ourselves… we have that freedom, we have always had that freedom… and as I said, I for one refuse to be my own repressor!

So let the music play, sing your own song, dance as though no one is watching, speak your mind, wear your heart upon your sleeve and cry… if you want to….

 

Photo and Words: freedom in chains. © 2011 Julian Luckham all rights reserved, this photo should not be used in any way without my explicit permission.

Leave a Reply