Ruminations on Freedom and Comfort

Are you safe, free and comfortable?

This morning a post by Edward Lucas on the website firstthings.com caught my eye. It was a response to an article about the challenges Russia is facing, and how the West still demonizes them based on past actions. Mr. Lucas seemed to have a very different opinion of the situation than the author of the article, and made his point at some length. 

However, what grabbed my attention was a line at the beginning of the post, in which Lucas mentions our need to have "a clear-eyed appreciation of the dangers facing our hitherto safe, free, and comfortable lives."

This generalized statement about the lives of his readers struck a chord with me. While I can make no statement regarding whether Mr. Lucas' life, or that of his "normal" reader,  fits into the "safe, free and comfortable" motif, the phrase seemed bold and presumptuous. As I continued to skim through the article, the question rolling around in my head was, "How does one define 'safe, free, and comfortable' when evaluating their own living situation? Or the lives of others?"

A hundred different theoretical models began swarming through my head, each one a unique combination of backgrounds, circumstances and perspectives. Each one with their own joys, fears, problems and solutions. How would those people weigh their own situations against the measure of "safe, free and comfortable"? How would they see each other from the same perspective?

Safe is defined as unlikely to be harmed. This could (and should) cover both physical and emotional harm.  Free, in the modern context, usually refers to having protected social and legal rights. However, it can also be used in the sense of having control over various aspects of one's life - from physical movement to speech to thoughts. Comfortable designates relaxation, lack of worry, and absence of physical or emotional discomfort. In many ways, comfort ups the ante on both safety and freedom. After all, some sense of safety and freedom are necessary before any true comfort can be enjoyed.

So, let's examine a few life scenarios which could exist at this very moment, and consider safe, free and comfortable from their perspectives. Then, perhaps, we can arrive at a better understanding of what this means in today's world.

Macie is 15 years old. She lives in Englewood, Chicago in a house run by her boyfriend's mother Wilma. Eight girls live there, along with four toddlers, Wilma, and Kareem, Macie's boyfriend and pimp. Wilma cooks, watches the children at night and keeps all the girls in line. She's strict, and often mean, but she reminds Macie of her own mother, who died three years ago of a heroin overdose. 

Not long after her mother died, Macie's father began sexually abusing her and pimping her out to support his habit. Kareem found her not long after that. He recruited her to come work for him instead. He's sweet to her. He touches her face when they kiss, and tells her that she's pretty. And he got her a CTA pass this month, so now she's riding the bus each evening and morning up to Garfield Park. The money is better, and the customers are nicer, mostly. Even with the hour bus ride each way, she's better off than the rest of the girls, who are still working down on Halsted.

Although Macie would love to have a room of her own, at least her roommate doesn't have any kids, so their space is usually quiet, peaceful and clean. Her bed is comfortable, and Ms. Wilma keeps the house nice and warm. Kareem is going to get her some new dresses next week, so that she can outshine the other girls, and start pulling in some big money. Macie hates the cold, and would love to move to Florida, by the ocean. But Kareem would never go for it, and the one time Wilma had really hurt Macie was when she mentioned Florida at breakfast a few weeks ago...

How do you define free?

Kara is a middle-school teacher in Tennessee. At 37, she's made a great life for herself. Her husband manages his own auto repair shop and they have two awesome kids, Sean (14) and Lillian (8). They have equity in their home, savings, 401k and are debt free. She has a girls' night out every other Friday, and enjoys doing projects around the house when she's not grading homework.

Life is good, mostly. Kara grew up just a dozen miles from where she lives now. She still has family and friends from her childhood she sees regularly. She attends the same church as she did growing up. But religion is a problem for her. She's always been a closet atheist. She believes in the goodness of people, and in many of the teachings of Christianity, but just not the "hocus-pocus" as she refers to it in her mind.

An undertone of anxiety permeates every relationship she has with those around her. Her parents, her friends, even her husband and children seem to find comfort in the faith which she simply fakes on a daily basis. Prayers at meals, prayers before bed, church twice a week, the pressure is unrelenting. And now, the new school board has updated their science textbooks to a version which contains nearly as much information about creationism as it does about natural selection. It took all of her considerable will to smile and keep quiet during the parent-teacher conferences. A large portion of the community seems delighted with the change, and they are eager to voice their opinions...

Gary has it all. After seven grueling years in business school, and another ten climbing up the corporate ladder, he had his first CEO position. Three years later he quit that job and started his own business. It flourished. Money came with it, along with a deep sense of satisfaction. He has pushed himself, believed in himself and taken risks. Now, at the age of 46, he is content to say he has succeeded.  A Benz S600, an incredible view of the Atlanta skyline from his Buckhead condo, a huge closet of Armani suits and the finest wingtips money can buy - he has everything he ever wanted.

Are you comfortable in your own skin?

But he really doesn't. Gary never married. He's never had a committed relationship. Work? Sure. He's been committed to that since he started mowing lawns at the age of 12, but people are a different story. Sexually, things are complicated for Gary. He admires women and is sometimes even attracted to them. But he is more attracted to sharply dressed men. Distinguished-looking older men are especially sexy to him. But he has never acted on his impulses. Well, not openly. A few times a year Gary slips out of his lavish life, and hits the streets wearing an old hoodie and a pair of jogging pants. He takes the bus down to one cruising spot or another, and hooks up with someone. The encounters are exhilarating, brief and often terrifying.

Lately, Gary has wondered whether he really is a man. A growing woman's wardrobe is concealed in one of the unused guest bedrooms - everything from negligees to business suits to very hot red dresses.  He has even taken to shaving his body and tucking himself in when he dresses up.  A half-dozen unopened boxes of makeup sit in the closet, too. Although he has started shaving regularly, Gary is terrified to try on the makeup, and even more terrified to ask anyone to help him with it...

Is Gary comfortable? Is he safe? What about Macie? Certainly, we'd probably all agree that Macie isn't safe, right? And she's certainly not free? Or is she? After all, she's committing forced sex acts with strangers, any one of whom could be a psychopath. Her "boyfriend" and his mother have her under their thumbs. She has no ambition, no independence. But, is she comfortable? Her current circumstances are a step up from being exploited by her stepfather, at least in her mind. So, who decides? Kara has all of her needs met on a daily basis, and she loves her job and her family. But she's certainly not comfortable, and deep down doesn't feel safe at all. Revealing her true beliefs could tear her world apart in an instant. Is that freedom? Gary could pack up and leave his whole life behind, finding a new place, a new name,  and plenty of time to explore the feelings bottled up inside of him. Why is he still living a lie? 

What are these problems to someone who is starving? Someone in prison? Someone dying of cancer before they've had a chance to fully live their lives? It could be argued that all of these individuals are "safe, free and comfortable" from the common perspective. Some would say that everyone has issues, and these individuals just need to "work it out" like the rest of us. Others might sympathize with one person or another, understanding to a certain extent how we find ourselves unexpectedly trapped in lives we did not consciously choose. And Mr. Lucas might argue that relative to being ruled by a iron-fisted fascist state, where one's life can be taken at the whim of the police, and the threat of nuclear destruction covers the streets like a terrifying dark fog, that these people are, in fact, perfectly okay. However, once all the votes are cast and all the arguments are made, safety, comfort and freedom are only manifested in one place - the mind. One can be free while locked in a jail cell, safe in the midst of a firefight and comfortable lying upon a bed of nails, if the mind allows it to be so.

Kara would certainly never be comfortable in Macie's situation. But, perhaps, Macie would be just fine as a rich, gender-confused Gary. Each of them has their own level of expectation for their lives. And each of them has their own internal limit for how far from that expectation they can be pushed before reacting. They choose their own battles. They find their own definitions of "safe, free and comfortable". And what about you? Could you be just fine as the religiously repressed Kara? Or the naive prostitute Macie? Perhaps Gary's problem seems small to you as well?

How about within yourself?

Are YOU comfortable and safe and free? 

Really?