We had wrapped up Saturday’s mermaid shoot and after Kari was back in her skivvies we noticed a flock of seagulls had been hanging around nearby taking everything in.
And she ran…
(if you don’t get the significance of that, just look up their biggest hit)
… right at them.
Her sudden movement towards their serene little observation point, caused the air to be filled with the sound of wings, beating through the early morning air.
I had positioned myself at the opposite side of the flock so they essentially took off between us. At least initially it seemed that way, but there were so many of them that they flew in front and behind both of us and made for some pretty awesome shots.
The flock was actually a good mixture of terns and black skimmers, so the colors, sizes and shapes made for a wonderful sight.
And the feeling of being in their midst was sensational. There never seemed to be a Hitchcockian threat, only the sense of being in the middle of organized chaos.
I’ve included some of the images at the end of the blog … hope you enjoy!
The expression “Free as Bird” ran around inside my head as I drove home and from an initial wonderment about why we choose freedom as being the domain of a bird to what does freedom even mean anyway?
You see, in one sense, birds are no freer than most creatures on the planet. They are subject to all the same restraints and dangers as any other wild creature. They have a daily search for food and they are subject to predators and thanks to us, they have a shrinking environment in which to live.
So, I mused that perhaps it is the notion that they can just take off and that their movement has a third dimension that ours doesn’t naturally have.
All creatures move in x-y directions along a surface plane, whereas the birds have a z component that allows them to also travel vertically.
That makes complete sense until all of a sudden the brain goes “Hang on. What about fish?” They have a z component also. They can swim in a z axis, just as much as an x and a y. And no one ever says As Free as a Fish.
Humankind is essentially an envious creature. We continually try to compare ourselves to each other, looking for dominance where we can. I guess that reassures a sense of worth in the minds of those that crave it.
If put to it, humans can dive and swim to an extent so perhaps there wasn’t enough to envy in fish capabilities. Also we tend to dismiss fish while elevating birds. The largest and most powerful of fish are vilified and happily hunted. While we elevate birds like the eagle to national and political status.
Could it be as simple as when we look down we see fish and when we look up we see birds?
We are so discriminatory, that the fish are therefore labeled as beneath us?
Think about it. Heaven is always up and hell is always down.
The more I thought about it, the less I could come up with a good argument as to why Free as a Bird is even a remotely valid argument.
Yet, as expressions go, it is a good one. It is full of positivity and is always used to describe a good and healthy situation.
It was a long drive home, so after my brain had run the gamut on the expression relevance, I turned my attention to the single word “free” and I began to process what we mean when we say that word and how it becomes a false sentiment that justifies the most heinous of actions.
Here in America, we like to call ourselves the Land of the Free and every time we send our troops to war, we tell everyone how they are fighting for freedom or protecting freedom.
It is difficult to imagine how that is ever a valid argument unless of course some tyrannical force is trying to take over the US, but that is never the case. Our troops fight for freedom overseas apparently in places like Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam. And no doubt if we ever do go to battle with Iran, it will be because we again want to be seen as the defenders of freedom.
I can’t tell you how many red-folk have repeated the viewpoint that all these people hate us because of our freedom. Being blue, I find that argument completely ridiculous and a real insult to the lives that end up being lost because of it.
But just how free, are we here in America?
That question took a lot of thought from me on the drive home and must have consumed 20 to 30 miles alone.
I began with what things can I say or day here that I can’t elsewhere and a few things bubbled quickly to the surface.
The first amendment protects our speech in many ways but the instances it doesn’t are actually interesting. For example, go ahead and post on Facebook or Twitter about how someone should assassinate the president. Be sure to recite your first amendment as they stuff you head first in handcuffs into the back of a black SUV.
Or voice your interest in having sex with a minor. That’s always a good one for getting arrested.
I had to look it up when I got home but there are around 10 or 11 categories of speech not protected by that amendment. These include: Obscenity, Fighting words, Defamation, Child Pornography, Perjury, Blackmail, Incitement to lawless action, Threats, Solicitation to commit crimes, and Treason.
It’s an interesting collection and while I don’t disagree with hardly any of it (except Obscenities, of course), it was also interesting to read that in most of the above, there is an exemption for political speeches. I guess this is why a certain dotard’s legal position is that they were making a political speech when they incited lawless action, thereby committing treason.
If you and I sat in our living room and said the exact same things to a half a dozen people that then immediately went and attacked a government building, they would be able to take us away. This is why we all need to buy podiums for our living rooms. So we can stand up and dictate our treason in a political framework.
Anyway, I digress. Sorry.
But beyond the mere legal interpretations of freedom here, I began to think about our sense of freedom here and what it is based on.
There is an unbelievably disproportionate spreading of freedom in the US than I wave witnessed in most western societies.
For example, apparently when Lincoln freed the black folk, he didn’t make sure that their freedom was the exact same as us white folk. For example, just last week in Michigan, a black realtor and his two black clients were taken at gunpoint out of a home that the realtor was showing and handcuffed. All because a neighbor reported that there was something suspicious in these folk entering a vacant home.
How free do you think those folk felt?
How free do you think a black male feels when he is pulled over in a car with his kids in the back, because he matches a description of a recent criminal in the area. Yeah … we’ve all read that description before … it’s called “black male”.
I won’t go on about how women are not free here to do with their own body what they see fit, because I don’t want to cause a continental divide over abortion issues.
Nor will I talk about how black communities are free to stand in a line for six or seven hours come voting time, while white suburbans can get in and out of their polling stations in twenty minutes.
And I certainly won’t mention how the US has 2.2. million people in prison, which as a percentage of our population is five times more than the rest of the world’s percentages. Don’t get me started on the percentage of those that are black, either. Damn black realtors clogging up our prison system!
No, the list is too long and hopefully I have made my point already about how the notion of American freedom is overstated.
So, I looked up the UN data and related sources to try to understand what the free-est nations in the world were and I found lists. Apparentlypeople other than me are interested in this stuff. Because the list is published every year.
America comes fifteenth.
There, I took away all the excitement and anticipation with three little words. Sad, huh?
I’ve reviewed several lists and they each do their best to categorize based on personal freedom, economic freedom, and political freedom. And America moves a bit between 15th and 20th across these lists.
Many Americans will decry the lists because they buy into the whole America Number One belief system, but then again these are the same folk who think the World Series is actually between the top two baseball teams in the world. In case you didn’t know, it’s name is actually a sponsorship name from The World newspaper which sponsored the first meeting of the best teams in two american leagues (1880’s I believe).
It is all well and good to be proud of America and even to want it to be number one. But when you put your blinkers on and dismiss any statements that you are not number one … well, that’s how society’s crumble.
Beyond the society we live in, it is important to ask ourselves on an individual level, how free are we?
I mean individually.
Are you tied into a job you don’t want. A marriage you hate. A life you regret.
Things like this form the basis of our individual happiness and I guess that is where I ended up, by the time I got home.
You see, changing society is a good thing but the real change that’s important in our lives is the change we make within our own.
We should look at our waking ours and ask ourselves what are we doing with our time from the “want to” perspective than the “have to” perspective. The latter needs to be as small a percentage as possible. The former is where our own freedom really lies.
If the only freedom we experience is in our dreams, then I’m sorry. That’s for the birds.
… just a thought!
