Jan Nicolaas Kind – Brazil
I wear a mask and use it not to protect myself, but to protect others. I am free because now I can read or re-read all those amazing books I hardly touched because I told myself there was no time. For sure, free I am, because I concluded that the pandemic is climate change in a pressure cooker.
Free because I could go inward, in the quiet surroundings of my meditation room and garden, while trying to connect with all the goodness that still surrounds us on this planet. Really free, because instead of going to my favorite vegan restaurant, I now experiment with various delicious recipes myself, didn’t know the dishes would turn out so well.
Free, because at this time in my life I am inexplicably forced to have a better look around me, recognizing that the only way out means that we do have to work intensively to form that Nucleus of Universal Brotherhood in order to serve this planet and its inhabitants in a truly “sustainable” manner.
Free I am because I distance myself from the avalanche of mind-boggling, often depressing news programs on TV or radio, and listen to Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection Symphony” or Graham Nash’s “Our House” instead; never realized that my sound-system is that good! I am free because I allow myself to sit behind my baby-grand to tickle its ivories, picking up an old routine, long overdue.
Yes, I am free and feel truly liberated when I see sinister individuals occupy a government building, dressed in semi-military outfits with swastikas, carrying semi-automatic weapons, yelling and demanding their life and “freedom” back. Ernst Röhm’s SA reinvented? Truly free and liberated, because I understand that those “demanding” simply don’t get it that they ARE FREE, but want to go back into their darkish caves with sweaty gyms, noisy casinos and smoke-filled bars, drinking their favorite beers or cocktails, not wearing masks, continuing the endless rat race.
Just like anyone else, I also want to return to that favorite restaurant, visit good friends, throw a party, walk along a beach and embrace the ones I love and care for, but that will have to wait.
Not free at all are millions of people, the world over, since they are without work due to Covid 19. Losing a job often does equate to the grief of losing a loved one. There are many very practical ways to give support to these folks. Without becoming corny, I would say that we're all in this together, so see if you can help out someone, somewhere!
I am free because every day at sunrise, I talk to a giant mango tree. There is no reason to socially distance myself from this majestic inhabitant of my garden. Especially now, with so much nonsense coming our way, those ugly press briefings, lies, fake news, twisted facts, fear, social insecurity and stupid misleading misinterpretations put out by just a few who do not know, talking to my old friend the tree “heals.” I hug the tree, hold and kiss the tree, it feels damn good to do so. You all should try it, so find a tree you can talk to!
So, for now I am free, I wear a mask just to protect others, not myself, while probing the countless challenging opportunities that lie before me, knowing that there is only One Life.
Observing the current battle between Light and dark, the desperate attempts of “so-called” leaders trying to divide mankind, falsely proclaiming that it is “us” against “them”, I had to think of the words of Anne Frank who, in her darkest hour and stripped off all her freedom, wrote in that impressive diary:
“I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”