Freedom Recorded in the House of the Dead

[Part 19]

"Due to my tendency to daydream and my long isolation, freedom in prison seemed like something much more free than true freedom—that is, more free than the actual, existing freedom of reality."

Dostoevsky
"The House of the Dead"
Translator: Seiichiro Kudo
Shinchosha, 1973, p. 555

Is it too pessimistic to feel that perhaps there is no freedom in reality that is more wonderful than the freedom of our imagination?

It seems humans are creatures that tend to imagine the unseen as better than it is, so perhaps this "freedom" is also being crafted into something far more attractive than actual freedom by that troublesome function called imagination, which has been granted to such tiny creatures.

It feels like a carrot dangling before a horse, swaying back and forth, always seemingly within reach yet never quite attainable.

However, it seems we do have the freedom to choose: to believe firmly that it is something we can absolutely obtain and try to bite into it, or to steel ourselves with the conviction that it is absolutely unattainable and face this life accordingly.

What we think about in our minds is always free, whether we are prisoners or saints.

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I like to look at my bookshelf and its spines.
The realm of freedom within me is lined up right there.