The Diverse Faces of Freedom

I was sitting at my desk, tired and unable to concentrate. I was under a lot of pressure. The software developers were blocked in their work because of me; I still haven't finished the diagrams they needed to progress with their work. "When will you be able to give it to us? It should be finished last week!" - they asked. But regardless of how much they would nag me or how much I wanted to have it done, I couldn't think anymore. My mind was blank; I needed a break.

I opened Vocal just to read some article, something different than NFT, Blockchain, software architecture, diagrams... Something that would help my brain switch off, even if for just a few minutes. For whatever reason, the “Challenges” button caught my eyes. I remembered Tara mentioning to me Vocal and the competitions there. “I hope you don't mind, but I dug through your blog, and I noticed you have posts there that are ready for competitions. Why don't you try the challenges on Vocal?" she asked me. So today I decided to have a look. I clicked the “Challenges” link and read the title “The moment of Freedom”. “There is nothing I could say about freedom. This challenge isn't for me” - I chuckled to myself when suddenly I could hear the voice inside of me screaming at me: “What?! There is nothing you could say about Freedom? Your entire life is about Freedom, a fight for Freedom. All you do is in the name of Freedom, and you are saying there is nothing you could write about Freedom?”

Life under the Russian regime

Suddenly I could see myself when, as a little kid, I went with my mum grocery shopping. We stood in a queue for hours. Then finally, the door opened, and people, like a pack of scared animals, stormed it. My mum held my hand and tried to ensure I didn't get trampled to death. That day she had to take me with her shopping, because she wanted to get some cream and butter for me & my sister, but they sold it only to people with kids. We got some of the goods we wanted, but it was the last time my mum took me shopping. She decided eating bread and lard with cracklings was safer for us, and we loved it anyway. When I was a kid, there was nothing in the shops, only vodka (which, for some mysterious reasons, you could buy only after 1 pm). I didn't know much about chocolate. We had chocolate-similar products, 200g per kid per month, but not chocolate. Those days, when you went shopping, it wasn't so much about money but about the "blue cards" that determined how much meat, sugar or other goods you could buy. Even cigarettes had a place on the "blue card". Nobody in my family smoked therefore we could use them and trade against other products. I didn't know that in other countries people went to the shops and bought whatever they wanted. How wonderful! That's not something granted; that's Freedom!

I remembered the days when I watched my mum cry because dad didn't come home on the usual train. Would he ever come home? Or was he arrested, and we would never see him again? In communism, prisons aren't the 5-start hotels where many underprivileged have more rights inside the jail than they had being outside of it (well, let's be honest, each prisoner has to have a bed to sleep on, the right room temperature, three meals a day and so on; not everyone has these rights outside of prison; it's why I call the western-country style prisons the 5-star hotels)

When I was at school, I had to learn Russian (no, I'm not Russian, and I wasn't living in Russia); I had to speak Russian fluently, I had to be able to read and write in Cyrillic, and I had to have at least one Russian pen-pal; otherwise, I wouldn't pass at school. I was told Russia was our friend, and we had to show our gratitude to the Russian regime; we had to be thankful to have such a wonderful friend! (when I think about this, even now, 30 years later, my blood is still boiling)

At school, I learned what to do in case of nuclear war; I knew what to do if we entered chemical or biological warfare. When I got older, I learned how to hold firearms, how to point and how to shoot. I thought it was normal; it is what kids learn at school – how to protect yourself, how to kill...

One day I came home from school, and there were soldiers around the house, one near the gate, almost in front of the entry door to our home, on his knee pointing and ready to shoot. My auntie stood on the staircase crying, “I don't want another war!” “What's going on? Are the Germans invading us again? I heard adults talking about the German army gathering their forces at our western borders, but... Is it real? Is it really happening?” - I wondered to myself. "The Russians have one of their bases just a kilometer away from my home so that they will help us, won't they?"

In 1989 the Russian Army finally left Poland. I remember the day when their heavy artillery, tanks, and military trucks were driving past my family home. It was the moment of freedom! The end of the Russian regime and the beginning of freedom! Or so I thought.

Life after the Russians left

The Russian army left, but the mentality of people didn't change; the fear was still there. The fear of the regime, speaking the truth, the fear of being yourself... I went to high school and... I rebelled. I refused to learn the twisted history that the Russian regime forced us to believe in (what a bunch of lies they told us!). I refused to read the useless communistic books they told me to read, I refused to repeat the twisted misinterpretation of world-known literature, and I refused to be who they wanted me to be. They told me they would break me. I didn't have the right to be me. They made my life a hell on earth. The teachers humiliated me in front of the other students; they all laughed at me. In the end, they made me fail one of the final exams. Six months in advance, the school director told me he would make sure I didn't pass one of the exams. It was nice of him, wasn't it? I didn't get any unpleasant surprises; I knew what was coming. This was probably the only time this man kept his word.

Eventually, I passed my final exams, but too late, and that year I couldn't go to a university. A couple of years later, I tried for university again. And again, failure. My dad was educated; therefore, I had negative points to start with, and I failed by just one point. At that time, many things in my life went wrong, but I still refused to become who they wanted me to be. I thought the moment the Russian army moved out and the regime was over was also the moment of freedom, but I was wrong... We were still prisoners of the communistic mindset... There was no freedom of speech, no freedom of belief, no freedom to express yourself, no freedom of religion (as we didn't need to fear the political consequences of a visit to our church because we weren't catholic, the people made sure we got to feel we didn't belong there)

My first emigration - Germany

I was 23 years old when I left Poland and emigrated to Germany. The moment I met the family, I would be an Au-pair girl for the following year, felt like a moment of freedom! I was a foreigner, but I was free. I could say what I thought; I could believe what I wanted to believe; I could be myself without fear of being prosecuted for this. The family I lived with was a wonderful German family. Though, in the beginning, we struggled to communicate (they could speak only German and French, and I didn't speak any of these languages), I had a fantastic time; they treated me as if I was their daughter.

During that year, I decided I would stay in Germany and study. I didn't have money, and I hardly could speak German, but I knew if I wanted to study, this was my only chance. It wasn't easy, but I did it.

One day during my study, I talked to my dad on the phone, and he said, “I found your old school notebooks and your assignments. The marks you got were so unfair. The teachers didn't even understand what you wrote. I'm so sorry...” “Dad, it's all good. They said they would break me, but they made me. Thanks to them, I'm strong enough, and I can build my life here; I will have much better chances in life than I had if I studied in Poland”. This was a liberating moment; it felt like a victory, as my parents understood that all the troubles at school weren't because I wasn't learning but because I wasn't who they, the teachers, wanted me to be. I have never regretted that I haven't become the person they wanted me to be. I was always grateful I had the strength to be myself.

I had a good time in Germany, but... I was a foreigner unable to adjust to the billions of rules dictating how to live your life. As probably everyone knows, Germans are exceptionally well organised, and they have rules for everything - when to do your laundry, when to vacuum clean your apartment, how to hang out your washing, how many open fire barbecues you can have in a year and so on. Everything is regulated by some laws, and if you don't obey them, you are in trouble. Well, my rebellious and super spontaneous nature wasn't the best fit for this country. And so, when I graduated, I felt free again – this was again a moment of freedom – I knew my Master's degree in mathematics was my “ticket to freedom”, and the world was my oyster.

My second emigration and discovering other faces of Freedom

I was 33 when I emigrated again—this time to Australia. I remember the day I arrived on the driest continent on earth. I looked out of the aircraft window that brought me here, I saw the endless golden beaches, and I thought to myself, "that's my home! One day here, I will be truly free!”. That day, I didn't know about all the difficulties and challenges I would face. I was happy to be in the land of my dreams, meeting Andy, the love of my life or, better, the man I believed to be the love of my life. I didn't even anticipate I would learn so many other aspects and meanings of freedom.

Sometime later, I suddenly found myself homeless in this foreign country, without money, family or friends. I was devastated, petrified and heartbroken. At the time, I didn't realise that this was also a moment of Freedom, maybe even the best moment of Freedom I had ever experienced because from then on, I was truly free. During the year after Andy threw me out of our home and I lost everything that mattered to me, I had the most wonderful adventures; I went to mesmerising places, met wonderful people, and I lived my life to the fullest. During this time, I started to discover diverse meanings of Freedom. I comprehended that my misapprehension of love became my prison, making me a captive to an abusive relationship. Los of someone we love is always hard, regardless of whether the relationship was healthy or not. The pain of disappointed dreams, unfulfilled expectations, and broken heart, the desolating feeling of being betrayed by someone we love are never easy. It's always debilitating. But healing from all the wounds and finding the joy of life again, finding love again (not necessarily in the romantic sense, but in general) is the best liberating feeling, the best form of Freedom. Now I can say I found true Freedom, not only because I'm living in a country where there is no war, no oppression or discrimination, a county where I can be myself without fear of prosecution, but mainly because I'm free of attachment and fear, free of social & peer pressure, I know whatever happens in life I will survive, I will be all right.

Sometimes I watch people, and I wonder to myself why so many in western countries abandon their rights to be free; they give up their freedom and choose to be servants, if not slaves, of the almighty dollar, commercialism and various media. They are free to think for themselves, believe what they want, and express their thoughts and feelings. Yet, they choose to forsake their freedom, and they follow the path paved for them by multibillion-dollar corporations that lure them into their trap of endless profits. They watch commercials telling them, "if you want to be happy, you need all these products, you need to buy, buy more and more and more” And so they go and buy all these goods they don't need only to find themselves drowning in debts and still not happy.

Some are born as beautiful eagles with large wings, which give them the freedom to fly high in the sky, but instead of spreading their wings and taking off, they drown themselves in self-pity, regretting they aren't chickens. They go on social media, find all the chickens there with thousands of followers (and nothing wise to say) and try to be like them, not even realising what they see there is fake and nothing is real. Of course, there are more chickens in the world than eagles (look at all the chicken farms - which are animal cruelty, but that's a different topic), but there are other eagles too. Why wouldn't we spend the time to find eagles like ourselves and join them? Why would anyone waste their life pretending to be someone they are not?

Isn't it tragic that those who want to be free were born into captivity and have to fight for their freedom, yet those born free do not appreciate it? They reject their freedom, give up their rights and decide to follow the crowds which don't even have a leader.

On the other hand, the governments in western countries praise themselves for leading in a way where everyone is free and have the same opportunities, though we all know this isn't true. They are just covering the modern type of slavery. The reality is that while some are wondering where to purchase their next multimillion dollars mansion and if they should switch from driving Ferrari to Lamborghini, others are working a few jobs and still can't make ends meet. That's not freedom... That's slavery, the underprivileged working for the wealth of the rich.

I looked around me, and everyone had left already the office. It was a quiet and peaceful late afternoon. At that point, I could concentrate on my work again and finish my diagrams. “I love my job! Even this is a sign of Freedom - how many people have a job they enjoy? Not many." - I thought to myself and realised there was a lot I could write about Freedom, the moment of Freedom, and the meaning of Freedom. Maybe I could and should participate in this competition.