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Caged Freedom: Sometimes Freedom Doesn't Mean You're Free






I thought this video would assist me with driving home my point and serve as the perfect example of what I mean by Caged Freedom. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption starring Morgan Freeman, Tim Robbins, and James Whitmore.

My primary focus is on Whitmore's character, Brooks Hatlen. An inmate who was sentenced to life in Shawshank in 1912. During his stay something strange happened to Brooks, he got used to his life of doing time. I dare to say that after so long, it didn't feel like he was doing time anymore. The place that was meant to punish him eventually began to feel like home. There, regardless of why he was convicted, he became somebody within the prison community. He felt respected like the neighborhood parson; appreciated like the grocer who lets you slide with a buck or two; the barber who gives you that fresh cut on the house from time to time; or that nice old man who always has a kind word to say who people in the community all liked. He made friends in what is highly considered to be the most unfriendliest of places. He was home.

I titled this article 'Caged Freedom' for this reason right here. During the library scene in the movie, Brooks was informed that after fifty years of incarceration, he was finally being paroled. The news did not set well with Brooks. You see, to him, he was being evicted, kicked out of his home. A place where he had grown old and learned to live with his surroundings. He had accepted his fate, making the hell of living in a 5x8 cell for the remainder of his days a heaven he didn't want to part with. It became his castle and he was king. Now they're telling him he has to go. This had a profound reverse psychological effect. Consider this; when he was sent to prison I'm positive he didn't want to go. Who would? I'm sure he would've loved to have gone home to his family. But he was removed from that reality and placed inside another; one he grew accustomed to. Now, fifty years later, he's old and arthritic, a mere shell of his former self, again he is being sent somewhere he doesn't want to go. A place called freedom; something he no longer recognizes and knows nothing about. He was so determined to stay that he was willing to kill his friend to ensure that his life behind bars would continue until his death.

For some people freedom is a scary place. For some people, bondage is comfortable because they've been there so long. So when the cell door opens and you're free to go you fight to stay because complacency has run its course giving familiarity all power over anything that contradicts your present reality. How many of you have served your time (figuratively speaking) and when the circumstances released you, you refused to go?  How many of you have made yourselves comfortable in uncomfortable situations? How many of you have ignored opportunities to get free, making excuses to yourselves that seemingly justifies why you stay in the cage? I know people today who are experiencing caged freedom. Like Brooks Hatlen, the cell door has long been opened and they are free to go; but they choose to stay. They choose to stay in that abusive relationship, whatever that looks like, be it domestic or otherwise, or in that undesirable place they've grown attached to because where they are is no longer fearful; it is where they might being going that scares the hell out of them. So they put forth little to no effort of walking out of their cell.

The prison of the mind, like Alcatraz, is almost inescapable. I don't know if anyone has ever escaped from Alcatraz, but I do know that some people never escape the prison of their mind. For Brooks Hatlen, he was released into a world he knew nothing about. The world to him was not a place he knew as freedom, Shawshank was. Instead of trying to become reacclimated back into society, he decided to go to the only place where he would be truly free -- he hung himself. You see, although he was no longer behind bars physically, his mind was still incarcerated. And the only way to be free was to be no more. Pay attention to your present situation; is there a cell door open that you need to walk out of? And if so, give yourself the chance to get it right by taking advantage of your new opportunity. For the only people who will stop by your cage to pay you a visit are those who are locked up with you, both literally and figuratively -- those who have become a part of the institution. And for those who have been institutionalized longer than you've been alive, leave them alone, for where they are now is all they know.


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