We all use words. Laws are written with them, and to-do lists, final testaments, Facebook statuses. We have had governments promise freedom and yet give us no functional expectation for living in the reality of such a word. I’ve never been handed a universal definition for the word freedom, or even the word fear I keep being told is supposed to shut me up asking about freedom. We all use words. But I want to know what all they entail before I’m used by them. 

Let’s say, for the sake of conjecture, fear and freedom don’t have fixed meanings, but are more like compass bearings. By definition, just directions.

We were taught freedom like it was a destination, like we would arrive there someday and plant a flag. But in my experience, freedom is vague, changing, real enough to pursue and yet removed enough to never be discovered. Like a compass-bearing. And you may walk south to get west, and east to go north. Freedom does not give an indication of the mountains that lie between here and freedom. Experienced only in the ability to make progress. Freedom seems to be more directional, like east or west. We may only ever really see it in the face of a compass.