“And an orator said, ‘Speak to us of Freedom.’ And he answered: ‘At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom, even as the slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them. Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel, I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff–

–and my heart bled with me.”

Kahlil Gibran, ‘The Prophet,” 1923.

Gibran here isn’t saying that freedom itself is negative, but as an icon, it is. That icon would be used against those who would raise it up and worship it, as well as it is a very real “fantasy" to nearly all. Only by exceptional self-mastery and a disregard for the icon could you be free.

"You shall be free indeed when your da

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