All I wish for is freedom

I had this incredibly frustrating day that ended in my psyche feeling wretched, as though it was trapped like a mouse in a laboratory maze. Utterly defeated and helpless, I left the office and sat in the car and screamed my head off to relieve the stress before I started the engine. (No one was left at the workplace, I was the last one to leave, so no one was there to see.)

...and then it dawned on me....

The depravity of realizing fortuitous certain future profits is creating a sense of paranoia in the leadership of the company I work for. The board and the CEO seems to be under the influence of an antiquated version of aggressive parasitic economics as their solution. Yes, they were previously good and generous managers. Yes, they also were surviving on an extreme water slide of pure old fashioned luck. But, they had never lost before.

In their ensuing worry over their 401K and portfolio losses, apparently they decided to overtly exhibit their anxiousness and anger by funneling it toward the employees and dependants of the business they own--- the company that so many work for. The issue is how like with 'Reaganomics', the cesspool of negative energy trickles slowly downward to the extension of all the 'employees'. So various VP's and directors suddenly become extended voices of the new manifesto: "COST CUT, FIND MONEY, MAKE LARGER MARGINS, MAKE SALES HAPPEN OR FIRE EVERYONE"....

Suddenly there are demands for activity and project lists, minute by minute updates, increased workloads, severe productivity orders, AND --- a multitude of added conference calls, emails, meetings, checks, calls, text messages, project updates... and so on ... and then more priority shifts... more cancellations of projects... more experts... less staffing... new projects... ... ... ... ... ...

In the last few months, the new year has been met with a steady and silent punishment by the board members to make up for their losses. Gone are the bravos of the successes of last season or the inconceivably remarkable growth of the company acquisitions and distribution of the last few years. Gone is the former recognition for the successful launches of ribbon awarded products only a few months ago. In its place is a series of back stabbing, finger pointing, double speak politics and crumbling trust with a pride in cutting corners and many times, lies and round about talks to create diversion from the very lack of productivity caused by this new chaos. Somehow, the Madoff ponzi disaster that so directly affected the board's and manager's portfolios became our psychological burden, as the newly structured lay off patterns left only those who were politically savvy and eager to micromanage others in their quest to provide a dehumanized spreadsheet of our deemed 'usefulness'.

This new disease that spreads mental abrasion is actually an old one. Embarrassingly I recall the father reared by war that shed his negative management on my toddler hood, childhood, teen years--- and early adult years, until the day I left when I finally realized as much as I could not heal his emptiness or pain, he could no longer leash me from my freedom.

We are all born with the undeniable right of freedom, or so I wished to believe with all of my heart. Then a realization hits me in early adulthood. To live in a society that barters by credit and printed money-- I am shackled to the burden of trading my skills, my possessions, my life, myself--- to the quest of a steady stream that would support my quest for freedom.

As I became jaded with the never-ending cycle of living costs and life demands, the cynicism that we labeled much of the elder generations from the depression begins to sink into my own mind. This societal environment has conditioned us all---- we have become forced to believe in a system of greed because there is never enough money to have the freedom that movies and media have taught us is possible. Most of us are not able to have or earn enough to travel on the Concorde to see the Eiffel Tower at a moment's notice; there is even fewer with the privilege of seeing the Serengeti or northern lights in Siberia. And eventually, as we overcrowd nature with our desires for the temporary material toys most are 'allowed' to afford--- most will not be able to afford the luxury of visiting or enjoying nature in its non-manufactured and majestically self-evolved state.

I drove home in the anguished self-loathing of having become enslaved and micromanaged by the burden of want of affording freedom--- again. I wondered too, if the managers that forced their micromanagement on me had unwittingly ignored their reason and merely become unconsciously enslaved to this notion as well. Their negative impact on my mind is not easily shed, as I am judged by how much I am like, or not like them--- as they release the weight of their burdens upon me.

In my choice to not be a continuing part of the negative chain, I submit to the deafening drone of my consciousness reminding me how I had to leave the father who could not stop his cycle of shifting anger and blame to those around him. When I left-- he stated to strangers that he wished me to suffer and become damaged as much as he. I swore I would seek freedom at almost any cost (but within the boundaries of my ethical needs to never sell myself). But as an adult in a land that demands basic living needs, I find myself barely able to afford a small portion of the freedom I seek to explore the world--- or, be free to choose the type of productive life that would find me joy.

I know my sentiments are not alone. I can only hope my patience withstands the attacks of this world of burdens and I will not submit to wishes of my managers to contribute to the negativity while attending to my responsible 'duties'.

And I wonder how many multitudes of other souls that walk this earth now, am caught in the same web. I wonder if the web can be re-woven, and re-balanced, re-shaped, to become as beautiful as one found in a remote forest sunrise, where the dew sparkles rainbows to let our minds wonder again with the vision of a new dawn. It is in human capacity to hope for miracles, and to bond together to make dreams into reality. Civilizations and philosophies changed over history, as buildings and empires crumbled and were reborn. Shifts in conscious awareness changed history-- and impacted human lives over millenia. Single amino acid sequence order switches changed entire genepools. And a singular desire to respect, share and honor with each other, just might, release us of the burden of greed.

I allow that hope to carry me through the night into the next day... and the next... and the next... or until I am fortunate enough leave this reality for the one I hope for....