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6. Introduction
“Straighten up, little soldier. Stiffen up that upper lip”
Wrote Eminem to his daughter in a song called Mockingbird once.
“When times are confusing, the best thing to do is to look inward or to the past for answers.”
Writes Thi for all Agency readers today.
I thought of bringing a statement from Benjamin Franklin.
This statement was taught to me by a dear American friend.
Given the quote, this article is mostly about the theme of freedom and the concept of “leap of faith” but might also be a very bitter sip of a panacea.
For the only difference between poison and medicine will always reside in the dose.
Also, the most effective medicine is usually bitter or burns on touch.
Having come from a lineage of pharmacists, I think I'm entitled to claim that.
But I digress.
Question: What does freedom mean to you, reader?
Does it have the same meaning to other people? Probably not. We are all entitled to our own opinions and concepts of freedom.
But if every freedom might be different from one another…
Does that mean the freedom of some should come before the freedom of others?
Can all these freedoms coexist?
Well, of course, they can!
That's the main reason why humanity invented democracy.
The word "democracy" has its roots in ancient Greek. It is derived from the Greek word "dēmokratia," which is a combination of two words:
"dēmos" (δῆμος), meaning "the people," "the citizenry," or "the commons."
"kratos" (κράτος), meaning "power," "rule," or "strength."
Just like the origin of the word, the actual concept of Democracy was birthed in Greece.
Just as Communism was first laid out by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The Communist Manifesto.
And just as Hitler laid out the ideology of Nazism in Mein Kampf, the book he began writing in prison.
The whole world breathes democracy right now, but very few honor or think about its origin. Democracy is a blessing taken for granted.
But blessings can be taken away from us when not acknowledged, valued or shielded.
Fair warning... today’s quote will be taken out of context.
But in a way that still makes a lot of sense.
Franklin wrote it in 1755, in a tax dispute between the Pennsylvania Assembly and the colony’s owners, the Penn family. The ‘liberty’ at stake was the Assembly’s right to tax them.
Little did he know… his face would be printed on $100 bills that would be used all around the world.
And that gives his words a much bigger truth when it comes to individual liberty. We often believe money buys us freedom and safety. But the more of our lives we trade for it, the less of either we actually have.
Let’s get to it.
“Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”
Benjamin Franklin
6.1 Leaps of Faith
And why no mental or material prison can survive human will.
Before we get into individual freedom and its relation to money, safety and all kinds of structural insurances a state provides to its citizens - let’s start with a concept that glitches any matrix.
Have you ever taken a leap of faith, reader?
I mean a real leap of faith - a jump in a direction that gives you no insurance whatsoever, but that you know is the right jump to be made.
A true pact with your intuition, the one that proves to you that you have a soul, and that sometimes, it knows exactly what you need - as long as you are brave enough to jump on a new boat while setting fire to the old one.
You don’t take leaps of faith by wearing a lifejacket or throwing lifebuoys to the sea before jumping off a ship. You take a leap of faith when you are in deep alignment with your inner self and life’s purpose.
The only insurance a true leap of faith provides is the idea that you stayed true to yourself.
The only guarantee you get is the fact that your life will not be the same anymore.
In the previous article, Issue.28, I shared a story about the day I decided to take a leap of faith by quitting a job with absolutely no other offer on the table.
Have you ever played Minecraft?
Curiously, a children’s game (it can actually be fun for many different age groups) can teach us a lot about leaps of faith.
