I was due to go out to an annual craft fair and party today, but I feel panicked. I could go, force myself, but I’m tired and I need to go shopping, get medication and tidy up because I’m expecting a visitor tomorrow.
Then I realised that I have the freedom to say no. I don’t have to rush out, to stand in a long queue for a burger, or listen to over loud music. Being in a crowd bothers me. I usually get a headache. My friend who was coming with me has not been able to get the time off. I already feel hot and bothered. So I’ll give it a miss this time. X
If a loud crowd is not your thing then don’t be cowed, be proud and say no.
Freedom should go hand in hand with equality. The right to speak out about problems in society, to try and eradicate things like torture and violence and wars. To reduce poverty and share resources and responsibilities more fairly. And also allow religious freedom as long as it doesn’t discriminate against others.
I know it’s impossible. Human behaviour makes selfishness and greed almost impossible to avoid. But we should try. Some rich people create foundations to make their wealth go to the poorest, the most needy. They show up the other wealthy millionaires and billionaires as people stifling equality and freedom.
Freedom is the ability to learn. To understand, to share knowledge. To show we are more than bluntly uncaring primates. Perhaps our anticedents with simpler lives may have been happier than modern humans can ever be. I am a naive idealistic person but I do care.
Freedom to play, freedom to think. Work with others, like this collaboration mural. The brain is plastic and it changes massively through childhood. Keeping hold of that willingness to learn and play helps solve problems, makes you think.
Memories of paddling in a river, or climbing a tree, having freedom to go to college and learn. I also think wit, and humour is important. Playing with words, striking up conversations with people. Enjoying puns and jokes, still being able to giggle. Fun is freedom to keep hold of your childhood.
Above all, freedom means being allowed to think, to care about people, to learn and find out things.
It must be important to have freedom of thought and speech. I don’t mean hate speech, or sharing violent or abusive beliefs though. Too many times people have been bullied and harassed by others who think they have all the answers. But it’s hard to work out what is the right thing to say… One person’s truth is another person’s lie?
Fake news does not help. Fact checking is important, if it’s done properly, I use websites like Snopes to check dodgy facts. I think the freedom to receive a good education is very important for both boys and girls. There should be knowledge shared around everywhere. If it means that all the world can act together and reduce pollution and save energy. Something must happen to improve everyone’s freedoms. I’m probably naive but we must try.
Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.
I will always be grateful for my mother’s encouragement for me to go to art college. She had to work to support us all and when I finished school she might have insisted that I work full time.
Instead she let me go to college (though I had a couple of part time jobs). I initially went on a preparatory course, then left home to do my degree.
I was aware that my cousin who was also artistic had to go to work in a factory and forget her dreams. I don’t know what happened to her after I moved away. But in my case I was always welcomed home in the holidays.
I’m glad my mom gave me the freedom to do art. Learning has always been something that I enjoyed, and to do a subject that I love? I will always be eternally grateful to her.
Going home over the years I realised how proud she was of me. She was always encouraging us all to do the best we could.
Memory lapses, things happen and the world turns around the sun. But in February it will be the anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine waged by Russias Vladimir Putin. Not that that was the start of it, first Russia took The Crimea, now the resolution seems to be to take the south east of Ukraine from its sovereign people. The argument seems to be that it used to be Russian and will be again.
The awful thing about it is the vicious tactics that are being employed.. Sending missiles against the power and water grids in the country. The senseless murder and maiming of the civilian population in their apartment blocks, in hospitals and in maternity wards. The leader of this chaos and destruction is one man, Vladimir Putin. He was involved in the terrible war in Syria where he supplied weapons to President Assad. He has a history of pushing boundaries (literally) and was given too much support by the ex president of a western country. He thinks he will get away with it, I hope he stops and gives Ukraine peace and freedom again but I’m not holding my breath.
There’s so much politics going on in the world. But what’s worrying in a lot of these elections is the idea that if a party lose they won’t accept the result. Clearly there are some states and countries where elections have been rigged. This is usually in dictatorial states where the regimes never change and the results come out with votes for the incumbent party getting more than 90% of the vote. Places like Russia, China or North Korea spring to mind.
What is more important than some form of fair elections? Free and fair must be the goal.
But recently accusations of stolen elections have occurred in countries where ballots have been normal and peaceful. If the incumbent official lost they generally accepted the result, but not any more. Like spoilt children they cry out ‘its not fair’ , or ‘he cheated’ its almost like leaders have temper tantrums. Weird conspiracy theories are thrown about and as humans are great at storytelling there is a tendency for some of these accusations to stick even where it has been proved that no corruption occurred. There are even attempts to change the rules to disenfranchise some voters.
So where now? People need to be grown up about it. Stop pretending that vote have been miss cast. Allow the real majority to take the chance to rule, and let’s have some sanity. Lying to the public and causing violence and disruption and distress is clearly wrong.
I like the freedom of playing with pattern and colour. This is my way of chilling, relaxing, meditating. Using a kaleidoscope style of drawing app on my phone. I cannot remember how I did this, it’s a few weeks or months ago since I drew it. Maybe I need to use things like this on teeshirts? Or on bags, but I’m good at prevarication, I need to give myself a kick I think…
Mallaband-Brown 