The quoted photo of Dr. Wends
As can be gleaned by the lives of the freemen everywhere, it lucidly portends unimpeded assertions of life and how one avails of the opportunity to get to where he felt he is freer. The solitude of the road gives one the openness to embrace what is unchartered and new, events and people who we will find inspiring as we interact with them as well as living in their societies and culture. So many travellers have seen this up-front and have left inspiring footprints in the distant roads, no matter how dusty it is.
The way of the less travelled is so constricted to what bounds him to be where he is at the moment. Most of the time, career and family tied us down save for those who resigned from their work and travel as well as those who travel with their family. Most of the time too what holds us back is our fear of the unknown, something that keeps us stay put at where we find most comfortable, our homes, our cars, our riches and our dominions. Ultimately, as you age literally, the gnawing realities of “what could have been” and “I should have don’t that!” reminds us of how truly free we are to choose the road and not the desk.
In democracy too, just like travelling, the state of being free is never absolute, never in places anywhere in the world. We can write, yes but we have limitations as to what we can rant about, against anyone or to the government. Such are the limitations of freedom originally intended by our forefathers which also promotes normalcy and stability. Simply put, if all men thus are free to do its own bidding without limits, then everyone will be Hitler, Pol Pot, Pinochet or Marcos. They only understood freedom from their utopian order, their myopic interpretations of human dynamics and their own bland perception of the vibrancy of democracy, dissent included.
As I visited Phnom Penh’s horrendous genocide prison, I gained insights about freedom and simply juxtaposition these insights to the very incarceration of our National Hero Dr. Jose Rizal in Fort Santiago, I have formed the belief that yes, “freedom is never absolute but its protection must at all time, resolute”. While being free gains for us limitations to what we can do most as individuals, we have civil liberties we ought to courageously protect from the perils of tyranny and infamy. Our freedom is non-negotiable in the gamut of democratic values we are bound to protect.
We, in the utmost exercise of freedom must also be reminded that we are bounded by its own limits however the protection of our freedom must at all time, characteristically determined, unpretentious and uncluttered by the nuances of a false ideology.
Journeys and Travels 