Opium Of The Dreamer
Sometimes I can feel it in the air, damn near taste it on some days. It lingers around with utter disrespect for my state.
A longing. An unexplained yearning.
For what, you ask?
A piece of freedom.
I constantly welcome it into my heart, as if greeting an old friend who was once dear and near. I often wonder why I long for it this much. Is it human nature to want what one cannot fully have? It cannot be, surely. That would undoubtedly be cruel. A cruel game to play with a species as often as ill-fated as men.
“These days I dream loudly, often too loud for my own good because I am often drawn into a roller-coaster of emotions as my soul struggles to hang on to my sanity.”
I crave it though. A piece of freedom, that is. Not a lot. Just mine. A piece of it that I can revel in and be entranced by its splendor. I have seen what too much freedom does to men. It corrupts them as much as power does. It seduces their most canal inhibitions and turns them into shadows of their true selves. Yes, I think freedom is almost too much for men. But then again, to crave it is a necessity.
Freedom was the opium of the masses before religion stole the hearts of men, and we crave to constantly return to it. Which is why I ask not for a whole lot of it — just for my little piece of it. Enough to breathe into the open-air and take life by the throat, and whisper, “I’m not through with you yet!” as it whimpers at the sight of the fire in my eyes. A fire harnessed from the heartbeat of my ancestors.
These days I dream loudly, often too loud for my own good because I am often drawn into a roller-coaster of emotions as my soul struggles to hang on to my sanity. I often find myself at 3am rationalizing this longing as a dream.
But I feel it when I wake up, it weighs on me. Unrelenting. It seeks to fight parts of me that stubbornly cling to mediocrity, it challenges the parts of me that are content with conformity, and it boldly silences the parts of me that are concerned with a politics of material gain.
Maybe, just maybe this is why I long for my piece of freedom. Because it unsettles a soul that yearns for rest, a soul clambering for some semblance of identity.
I do not know if my piece of freedom will be enough, or if I could explain this longing for what I assume is its sweet nectar, but I do know that to search for and to be drawn to it is men’s undying wish.
