& meretricious line from a popular song :
'Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.'
Does it mean that you're only free
when you are without food or home or shoes,
and so must beg on the street or be
or be locked up or raped as a refugee -
which is no freedom at all ?
Or is it another way of saying
that freedom comes with your last breath
when you rise or fall
into heaven or nothingness -
that liberty is death ?
(Or am I just obtuse ?)
1 comment:
The context in which the line was often applied to was 'I have plenty of what seems like nothing to me. I want to walk away from it all.'. If 'freedom' meant anything in the song, then it meant to be allowed to walk away from a limiting situation that others want to force you to accept. Such escape was valued where material comfort and success were in abundance, but their very abundance seemed to make them, and those who accepted such comfort without question, seem meaningless. Janis Joplin sang the song with gusto. For Her 'freedom' was to choose to die of a heroin overdose, so your blog could be right about her; her freedom from all the conflicts and hopes she endured came with her last breath.
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