Child Mask
Talking about freedom without defining it. I assume everybody just has an assumption of what it could be. That’s enough for this stream of ideas. You don’t have to know it because I think it’s understandable. I know your undefinable experience of freedom is enough.
I was intrigued by the idea of group 5. They said you have to learn freedom, while we in group 4 said that you are born free with a form of “child freedom”. Making choices based on gut feeling and intuition. A baby has a kind of an internal, psychological freedom. After talking with some people of group 5, I agree with learning freedom. Because we live in our cage, a frame in which we are. Social rules, ethics, and habits. It actually doesn’t feel like freedom but needed for a form of social freedom. Respect and empathy. There is also the importance of happiness. How free do we want to be to be happy ? I think that giving up some of your personal for the wellbeing of society enables everybody to be freer. I think that when you grow up and learn about the world, your cage, you learn about what it means to be in the cage and if you want to break the cage for more freedom. If you don’t know it consciously, how can you be free ? It’s like the matrix or the cave of Plato. So, when growing older, you learn what you can do inside and outside your cage.
You learned to restrict yourself, as your parents did with you when you were younger. As your parents restricted you from doing things, we will later on learn to do it ourselves to be accepted in our own cage, society. As parents domesticated their kids, the grown up kid will continue to domesticate itself.
When you grow older and find your place in the world, you also create your identity and how you show yourself to the world. Which parts of your identity you show to the world is very selective. I asked to the transdisciplinary team to think about hiding parts of your identity which is an important link with the glass masks of the work Ubuntu. You see the world through the mask and reshape yourself. How you show yourself to others. I think this is normal because also here, my mask, the way I show myself, is different. But when you start to hide important parts of your identity, it starts to be dangerous, I think. Is being and showing yourself to the world important for freedom ? Is it a gift that you can hide homosexuality in a homophobic environment while someone with a skin of color can not hide skin color in a racist environment ? It feels like a very toxic advantage. You use it achieve something but it’s being not free at all. Is freedom a thing, a state, or is it an experience, a feeling ?
What is the link with Happiness ? Isn’t happiness more important than freedom ? Because a child doesn’t experience freedom consciously but can be happy. Is ignorance a bless ? Would it be happy if it would be free and unhappy when it is restricted by authorities like parents ? I often think so. Breaking the cage. Why would we be freer than ? What would be outside the cage ? Is growing up and developing your own values breaking the cage ? I think it could be. It brings you to another form or appearance of freedom, but it’s maybe just a bigger cage. I think the new cage of growing up and creating your mask is important in relation to the others and interplay personal and communal freedom. You cannot do anything without considering the safety of others. Notion of the other and empathy. The mask is important for this. Your mask could safeguard your freedom. The mask as a tool for more freedom ? Sound unhealthy. But as long as not everybody is accepting and respectful, we can use it to reach something. In some cases, we can adopt for freedom. Although I think it’s not healthy and very unfair. Not everybody can adopt any part of its mask, its identity. A headscarf to be at least accepted and not humiliated.
To me it seems extremely wrong but, on that moment, it helps to get the best out of it. On the short run. Feels like getting older just learns you about the cage and what you can do within it. By learning about the cage, you can make the best out of it.
Anton Kindt