Not Free

Get out of Jail Free Card

During the Cold War there was a list of countries and their level of freedom. It still exists but we pay less attention to it.  I recall three categories — very free, free, not free — and I remember ratings were based on politics, economics, and so on.

So too in man.

We are very freefree, and not free based on life areas — jobs … family … money. As with the world list much of this depends on definitions: what exactly is it to be free, anyway? I can be free in one area (family, say) but not in another (money). What’s weighted, no pun intended, more important than other areas, as well?

Most people seem to think of freedom as the ability — the right — to do what we want. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as we can do it. That’s not freedom, but license. Liberty, freedom, is being able to do what can and should be done*.

The Fat Guy is not physically free. He isn’t free to run a mile, or bear heavy burdens — let alone carry an injured child to a hospital. He can still do the what by knowing the why but he won’t be able to do it for very long. He isn’t free to do the thousand and three things an ordinary thin man can. He is extraordinary in all the unwelcome ways.

This slavery is largely self-imposed; I grant that. I know that better than you. But that’s a different question — an important one, and one to be discussed, but a different one. Right now all I want to say is, the Fat Guy is not free.

 

*Discipline, of which more another day, is an element of liberty, making it real in specific cases: doing the right thing in the best time, place, and way.

Recent

Coyotes and Christians

I am not saying Christians are like coyotes. [For that, some could cut caustically to coyotes are like Christians — tricksters, roaming in the dark, feeding on the dead … ] Simply noticed — somewhat in passing, as it’s said, having attained, apparently … achieved? … some kind of state where nearly anything I hear,

Read More »

And Did Dostoevsky Say ‘Beauty Will Save’

Short answer: he did not. Neither did Prince Myshkin, that we know of. Likely both believed it. Beauty — in the person of Christ — will do so. And clearly D wrote of M in The Idiot to explore art and beauty and ugliness and salvation. But did he say it, and did he believe that

Read More »

What I Recalled Watching Netflix

[Television is educational.]   One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain

Read More »

Seeking the King

A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do

Read More »

Random

Animal Planet Part XVII

Well we watched the end of Planet of the Apes. Oy. The 2001 version ends, as you may know, in a massive battle scene, like some simian Braveheart. Huh? This is how a Tim Burton film (almost) ends? Not with a weirdness but a boom? Then there’s the whole Lincoln Memorial (actual) end. Huh? Huh?

Read More »

Of Love

We like lists. Here’s one. Love is a song Love is the greatest song Love is integral Love is alive Love is gospel Love is power Love is work Love is desire and fulfillment Love is suffering Love is free Love is true to reality Love is accurate Love is simple Love is individual Love

Read More »

You Da Man

   A Good Friday And petulant Pilate as if triumphant — What I have written, I have written! Finally a decision.    

Read More »

Related

Everything Works As Well As Well As Everything Else

For The Fat Guy, everything works as well as everything else. He’s tried everything. It all goes to hell. Ergo, everything works as well as everything else. Exercise No exercise High fat, low fat High carb, low carb High protein, low protein Fasting, cycling, three meals, six Also crying in one’s club soda. Works great.

Read More »

I Am The Fat Guy

One New Year’s Eve I was in Big Bear with friends. I was in college and we’d been coming up the mountain for a few years, first at Mike’s, then at Andy’s. It didn’t take much for us to decide to drink while we were up there, but we weren’t hardcore, as far as I

Read More »

Size 46 Walmart

There was a time when my weight goal was to fit into size 46/30 khakis from Walmart, and that time was last Thursday, when I bought them. I weigh some 334 pounds. I am 42 years old, heading to 43. I am officially diabetic, per my doctor’s adjudication of some recent unfortunate blood tests.* The

Read More »

The Fat Guy and Buttons

Buttons are the bane of the Fat Guy’s existence. Buttons leave gaps when the Fat Guy’s fat rolls jiggle around and peek through them. Buttons catch on drawer pulls, come undone at the belly, and are generally uncooperative. Buttons are generally on costlier clothing, which means the Fat Guy is spending too much money on

Read More »