DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Emancipate Yourself

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, no one, but ourselves can free our mind.” Bob Marley 

These are the thirteen words I’ve spent the last couple of years living by. These are the words that not only define me as a writer, but as an individual person with my own individual hardships, and experiences.

 

When I was younger, I grew up listening to other people: teachers, parents, relatives, and role models. All of these people had their own morals, values, religion and ideas of what defined right and wrong. I was trapped in a phrobia-ed claustrophobia where everyone I knew was trying to push their way of life upon me. I was so caught up trying to understand what others did that I never truly understood what I believed. 

 

When I was thirteen years old, I lost two friends in a tragic car accident and I had also lost my cousin mentally. Although I was fortunate that he did not pass away as well, the tramatic brain injury he had from the accident was very critical. Do you know what it feels like to walk into a room and have your own cousin that you've known for the past fourteen years of your life not remember who you are? Well, I do; that was the first time I had ever experienced a death and I was young.  I couldn't fully understand what it meant to die. And for the first couple of months after my cousin got out of the hospital, I would watch as he desperately and repeatedly tried to call his friends.  Each time they didn't answer, I had to explain to him that they were gone and this time they weren't going to come back. I mourned for them in such a way that after awhile, I guess I too forget what it meant to live. You see, anyone can say they're alive, but not everyone understands what it truly means to live. 

 

Then I heard this: “for the past 35 years I’ve looked in the mirror and asked myself, if today was the last day of my life would I want to do what I’m about to do today? And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for far too many days in a row, I know I need to change something-almost everything. All external expectations, all fear of embarrassment or failure. Those things just fall away in the face of death leaving only what is truly important. Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking I have something to lose” (Steve jobs).

 

That is exactly what Bob Marley meant when he said we need to “emancipate ourselves from mental slavery.”  The only thing that’s certain in life is death. So if we live our lives being trapped by emotions and restraints, then we truly aren’t living, because we are so preoccupied by the world and everything within it.  The only way we can begin to break away from that bondage is by realizing that the slavery that is life, is just a mental interpretation of how we should be and how we should act in mainstream society.  That is exactly how I attack my writing: by writing without fear, or embarrasement, without worries. I just write and let the page become a part of me, because the purpose of writing is to allow everyone else to hear your message.

 

Credits

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, no one, but ourselves can free our mind”: Bob Marley 

Redemption Song: Bob Marley

 

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.