Call it freedom – that stuff we all want more of. Where do I find the guides to help unravel the perplexities of daily life? Up there? Down here? The casual meeting in the street? ‘Whatever may be meant by moral landscape.’* Archaic corners of the industrial wasteland where only cold winds blow. OK, the door is securely bolted, nobody’s going to break in. I can hold out for weeks if necessary, though I hope that help arrives in minutes rather than days or weeks. I shall have to ration my meager food store. Chew slowly. Maximum nourishment from minimum resources. Locked in here I shall resist, confident of the traditional virtues of courage and fortitude. We shall overcome.
Is freedom a capacity? A capacious possibility. To live more fully? To live more fully sometimes seems to come down to an ever longer list of stuff that I want to do which is interwoven with all the stuff that comes under the heading of ‘must do’, ‘should do’. The word emancipation sails bravely into view. A word that seems locked into slavery. Owned by the wealthy and powerful, subject the whim of their impulses and desires, a life without rights. Locked in here behind this bolted door I cannot think of emancipation or rights. Or only my own fantasy of these social elements.
You mean I have to open the door and get out into the street! You mean I have to claim my rights! OMG this is asking a lot. I get it! Nobody is coming to guide me. Holding out here, my efforts to resist are a total waste of time.
*Geoffrey Hill, The Triumph of Love
