My heart whispers, “It’s time to write about freedom, your understanding of it, and how it has changed throughout your lifetime.”
I think of my youth. A longing for freedom from school and a strict upbringing. Under the influence of the hippie movement, I and my friends criticized the “bourgeois” and longed for freedom as promoted in the film “Easy Rider”. Nevertheless, I admitted inwardly that we lived well in bourgeois society.
At the latest, after hearing some news about the death of addicts because they believed that they could fly and the suicide of my friend Wolfgang, I realized that true freedom is linked to laws. If I transgressed the laws, I was no longer free. So freedom comes with responsibility.
I saw the movie “Die Weiße Rose” (The White Rose) and learned that there was an inner freedom and an outer freedom, with the inner being more important. It is ideal if you had both freedoms. I heard, loved and learned the song “Die Gedanken sind frei” (The thoughts are free).
I learned how important freedom is and that sometimes you had to fight for it. I’m thankful for freedom in democracy, even if it’s not a perfect system.
I went to a socialist youth club. Nice people and cool music. We had visitors from Moscow. They told us about the benefits of socialism in the Soviet Union and what they had already achieved. A young man gave me his business card with an offer that if I came to Moscow I could work there. My mother was shocked and yelled at me when I told her about it. Years later, I understood better why she did that.
Years followed in which my relationship with God deepened. I realized that freedom, in its most original sense, is a precious gift from God. He took a great risk because He wanted us humans not to be robots but free to evolve and love. He respected that freedom so much that He didn’t intervene when we transgressed the laws of liberty.
If God does so, then no authority has the right to do the opposite. People are free to smoke. If not, those affected would protest violently: “It’s our right”.
Every year about 8 million people die from smoking. This was also the case in 2020, when by comparison 3 million people died of Covid-19. Whether to be vaccinated or not is the free decision of every human being. Why don’t our experts offer advice on how to boost your immune system to be better protected, instead of getting vaccines whose long-term effects are unknown?
2020: Moderna had 764 Million Dollar more profit than 2019. Biontech-Pfizer had 367 Million Dollar more profit than 2019.
A little less profit would have helped humanity more. But medicine against Covid-19 bring less profit to the pharmaceutical industry.
I propose a toast to the future of freedom.
© Franz Kellner 2023-08-01