In beginning this project, I had had some idea of my own answer to what freedom is, and wasn’t expecting great results from other people as I assumed most people would have similar opinions as I do. However, from interviewing strangers in the park to people I am very close with, I have found a range of answers and perspectives on the question of freedom, even some that have made me quite sad. To recap, this question rose from when last year my dad told me that freedom is money, because you can’t get anything without money. This was during a turning point in my life where I declared I wanted to be an artist to two parents in medicine, an older brother studying to be a civil engineer, and grandparents who had worked in politics, law and business. I was being scolded for my work ethic in that conversation, and told that freedom is not what my wish was, to live humbly and comfortably enough to allow myself to make art full time.
A year later, I have distanced myself from my family. Not even purposefully at first, life and the way I think just took me farther away. But this distance has allowed me to feel more free than I ever have, a feeling I didn’t even know before. So I wanted to ask this question again, to myself and everyone around me. I even went back and asked my parents, and had a mixture of surprise and sadness from their response. (Still waiting on my mom’s response)
I interviewed some people by speaking and recording, some by asking them to write in my sketchbook and take a photo for me after, and some over email (those who I would not be seeing in this two week time period). I enjoyed the varied responses and found myself searching for it each day I was in the city, and found mostly sadness. And one evening when I tried to find freedom in the city through photography, I made my way downtown, to where my boyfriend and I used to go often when he went to school down there, trying to find nature, the sky, the water. I arrived at Brookfield Place, standing at the edge of the water as the bitter breeze hit my face. It was only a little after 4:30 in the afternoon, but the light was all gone, and my underexposed photo on my stupid disposable camera probably wouldn’t come out, (they are currently being developed so I don’t know yet) and once again I found sadness and frustration in this mini-voyage for freedom. I took the photo anyway and went back home, and it took me way too long to get home. I wrote a poem that night about why.
The next day I went back home for Thanksgiving. And when I say home I mean my boyfriend’s house, close by to where my parents live, because they’ve taken me in as family. And without even thinking about it or realizing I was doing my homework for this project, I got a little closer to freedom. When he and I were being silly and weird, staying up late, being ourselves, taking photos of each other in stupid outfits, laughing so hard. We had work the next day, but we still continued to stay up, make a midnight snack, even as our freedom from that night would be taken away the next morning from work. I wrote a (bad) poem about that too. So I realized I didn’t try to find it, I had it when I wasn’t thinking about where I was, who I was, what I was doing. I just was.
This question will be a lifelong research project for me, which I will gladly take up, as finding freedom for myself will only in return give me true happiness. But for the two-week deadline, I think for now my answer is that. Freedom is just being. Being yourself without even thinking. It’s loving, living, and making the most of everything without even trying to.
(Trying to attach the interviews but the files are not working…will figure this out asap)
