From Litro Magazine UK: the Prompt Was ‘Freedom’ –

Simple on its face; complex in its expansiveness. The following was my response…

ALL THE FREEDOM PRIVILEGE ALLOWS

by Lorraine Devon Wilke • 19th March 2019

“It’s all relative,” a relative said. “You ask any person on the street about their life, and they’ll be the first to tell you they’ve had it harder than anyone else. They’ve suffered more, been more victimized, and their people put up with more abuse throughout history. They holler, ‘This life matters, that life matters, ALL life matters,’ and who the hell knows what to think anymore? Bottom line, we live in a free country and people should just shut up and be grateful for what they got. Now, go leave me alone.” ~ Overheard at the senior table sometime after lunch.

Janis Joplin told us that “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” but odds are good the majority of adults living in the world today, both those old enough to get that reference and those who aren’t, embrace a more expansive, complex view of our most valued of human rights: personal freedom. Yet beyond hippie poetry and ingrained notions of entitlement, we of the western world are so accustomed to the ease and permission of the First Amendment or the Human Rights Act, our codified protections to be and do what we choose; our invitations to “speak our minds,” pursue our happiness, love who we love, or demand free Internet, that freedom as a concept is as taken for granted as the air we breathe. We revel in it, wave it, wear it, shout it from the rooftops…

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