Surrender?

Is surrendering yourself the only way to acheive freedom? A lot of schools of thought would say so: George Orwell stated (ironically) that 'Freedom is Slavery', and perhaps the vice versa is equally the case.

One of the possible translations in Arabic of the word 'Islam' is 'submission'. People say that growing up is all about learning to live with authority, to give in to its requests, more like. For animals, there are no choices, they do what their instincts command of them - perhaps that is the true definition of freedom? The inability to do anything else? On the other end of the scale, the human beings who are most obsessed with the ideal of freedom are those who have too much of it rather than those who have too little of it...

Whenever someone asks me about my politics, I refuse to answer in more than one word, (because, after all, the question is too vague to demand anything but a vague answer), and that one word I say is 'Liberal'. The word stems from the Latin word for freedom, and so really, as an ideology, it is obsessed with freedom - and so am I.

This is something that I find confusing, because sometimes I view the concept of 'freedom' as something that is profoundly real, perhaps even ultrareal, and at other times I view it as the ultimate abstraction, and illusion created by a brain with waaaaay to much time on its hands. What does it say of me that I am someone who believes in something so strongly that I can't even consistantly grasp in my own mind?

Maybe its true to say that freedom only really comes from surrendering oneself. I mean, in my own life I have found an unfortunate symmetry between the times in which I have been happiest, and the times in which others have had more say over my life. Maybe I've disgusted some people with this revelation, maybe I've revealed myself to be some kind of natural slave...

PAH! I've been thinking about writing this blog for the past few days, and haven't - somewhat because I've been busy (goram essays...), but also because I realised that as soon as I got round to writing it it would be nothing but a set of introverted self-questionnaires. But here it is nonetheless!!!

In other words, I bought a new razor. Its one of these new ones with the ninety-three blades and a soothing strip of elixir of life built in. As soon as I got it I decided to shave myself up a pair of moustachey-sideburney-joiny-uppy-things.

In any case, I think next January calls for another image reinvention.