The previous century. The mid-seventies. I was thirteen and had just had my first deep confinement insight. It was scary and fearsome, yet at the same time exciting and hopeful. For an hour or so, I was inconsolably weeping, hiding in the meadow behind my grandmother’s house. Why exactly, I still have difficulties explaining. For one, nothing had happened to me. I hadn't lost anyone. I had everything a boy could need to be happy. My school grades were great and I was looking forward to a long summer of freedom.
Ah, there it is – that word again: freedom. Maybe that was the trigger for this unexpected onrush of strangeness. Yes, I remember now: just the moment before, I was thinking how good it is to be free from bothersome school tasks (which I didn't have any problems with) and literary felt the juices starting to flow in my muscles. Surrendering to this boyish joy, I was running through a field of corn, trying to reach the other side in less than... well, faster than the previous time. Breathing heavily, I was envisioning the two months ahead, trying to figure out what I would do to fill them with fun.
Swimming in the lake - yes! Very often. Books. Yes, books! A lot of them. The interesting ones. Some adventures. Science fiction. Aliens and space travel. Oho, tomorrow I would re-examine the hidden shelves of the local library and maybe I’d even find some books about time travel – my favorite pastime dessert! And, of course, a touch of magic; a fantasy (I was just discovering the obscure writings of the now-famous Tolkien and becoming one of the first fans around) – that was a must.
Ok, what else? Going on vacation with my parents? Cool, two weeks of the hot, sunny, salty air of some of the Adriatic islands. I like it.
Girls... Oh, I wasn’t thinking about girls yet. Actually, I did, but not so seriously. They were not clearly in the picture I was painting that summer afternoon. Friends, maybe. Some games, evening jokes by the fire in the field, short trips to the nearby, not-so-high mountains... There was nothing special in all of these mish-mash fantasies. Just a young person, wandering around in his mind and his body, trying to figure out what his summer would be like.
And then, out of the blue, I was hit by an unexpected missile. I was frozen in mid-jump, forced to fall to my knees and press my face hard into my hands. In a second they were wet with tears.
It was nothing physical, nor did I suddenly remember the alien abduction from the previous night. I hadn't accidentally stumbled upon a venomous snake, nor was I suddenly startled to hear voices from hell. I just saw, so clearly, so vividly, that my thinking was not only similar but almost the same as the previous year. There were some differences, but even those differences reflected a repeating pattern. Or, better to say, an evolving pattern. I was growing, bit by bit, and my thoughts, wishes, and desires were growing too. But they were so... predictable! It was no brainer to say what the next thing I would wish for would be. If I had more time and more space, and the will to do so, at that, now long gone moment, I could have given a predetermined account of my next summer’s fantasies; and the one after that; and the next; and so on.
It is not only true that most people entirely misunderstand Freedom, but I sometimes think I have not yet met one person who rightly understands it. Walt Whitman
It was all preset!
I was just following the path laid down in front of me. I was thinking, doing, jumping, reading, smiling, wishing, hoping... just as I was supposed to. Not because it is understandable that young boys do such things, but because me, a special and unique me, was supposed to do such things. This Adrian boy, ME, was so predictable that it was unbearable.
So, Adrian fell to his knees and began to cry. For a few seconds, the cry was silent, but soon it transformed into sobbing. The reason: the crying itself was recognized as being predicted. It was supposed to happen, so it was just the next level of an infinite dark wormhole without any visible exit.
For an hour, I was lost in that darkness, chewed again and again by the jaws of the awful demon of predictability, who showed me, so utterly uninvited, the misery of the human condition. It was not only about me, of course. When I finally raised my head, I felt other people, too. "Felt" means, I "saw" them in my mind. I was "hearing" their thoughts as they were my own. Later, such things would become more common to me. I would become capable of "smelling" thoughts like body odor. This is one unfortunate and suspicious "ability". I cherish the moments when it ceases to take hold on me. Those are the blissful moments of peace I wish to prolong as much as I can.
But there and then, for the first time, I had a glimpse of what was happening in other people’s minds. And I didn't like what I saw.
There was nobody out there in the cornfield with me. I watched the village houses, white, green, and yellow, squatting safely under red roof tiles. There were people inside them, going about their business. They were sitting, standing, cooking; some of them were in their beds, resting or recovering from illness; some of them were silent, some talking, shouting, and even fighting. Mothers were nurturing their babies; children younger than me were playing with their toys; men much older than me were playing with theirs.
It was real life happening, yes. It is how things are. You could argue that just a slight change in perspective could bring a joyous feeling of liveliness to that scene. People are alive. They live. That's something to rejoice in, isn't it?
It wasn't. It was the most terrible feeling I had ever experienced. I "saw" a twenty-two-year-old girl and could tell exactly what her next thought was going to be; how she was wishing for a weekend party and fantasizing about romance coming into her life. I felt the man of thirty-seven, counting his assets and longing for a new car in his garage. Over there was a forty-six-year-old woman, resenting her husband’s infidelity and contemplating divorce, wondering how their children would take it. And there, a fifty-five-year-old man, trying to figure out how to follow his doctor's advice to avoid his next stroke and still enjoy some nights drinking with his friends. A couple, in their late sixties, worrying about their pension time, and how they would farm their land, since they were growing weaker, and their children had moved to the city. A seventy-eight-year-old woman fighting with pains in her bones, and a slightly older man turning to faith, because he knows his time is coming.
In every mind, in every heart, including mine, I saw an invisible pattern. The predictable, understandable, acceptable path of our life. We follow it, stupendously unaware of its existence.
What was I thinking about just a moment ago?
About freedom. Right. About how to spend my free summer. Freely.
It was over. There and then, around my thirteenth birthday. From that moment on, for many, long years to come, I was never to think about myself again, or for that matter, about anyone who I’d met, as a free person.
We are all prisoners. We are confined.
Admittedly, such thoughts could make a person go crazy, and a young man depressed. It did cross my mind that, if every thought of ours is just a way of fulfilling the pattern, suicide may be the only free choice we have. However, in all that ultra-quick turnover of my young life, that was the only thought I smiled upon that day. Smiled and rejected, without much doubt. Suicide as a "free choice" is equally valid as buying a new car, getting a job, having children, eating fast food, riding a bike or fancying a chocolate ice cream. Meaning – it's not.
The will in truth, signifies nothing but a power, or ability, to prefer or choose. And when the will, under the name of a faculty, is considered, as it is, barely as an ability to do something, the absurdity in saying it is free, or not free, will easily discover itself. John Locke
When I was just a little older I read what Camus, Sartre, Hume, and even Jean Améry, had to say about suicide. No point of view was better than another. It was all INSIDE my perceived pattern. And, miraculously, I saw it right then; I understood it without too much thought.
In spite of being shocked, I didn't shy away from the rather frightening world of mental slavery I saw in my mind’s eye. Somehow, behind all of that, I also saw a gap; an imperfection in the tapestry of the illusion. It was there, right in the midst of all the predestined and determined merry-go-round of human lives. It wasn't anything tangible; it was more like a possibility of something. Years would pass before I would be able to even start to describe what it is. But, I knew right from the beginning - in the end, I would touch it, taste it, know it and live it.
Yes, I was unwillingly forced to look at the real bondage of human souls much earlier than anyone would expect, and much deeper than, I know that now, most people ever do. Even nowadays, when I trying to express the reality of a situation I saw and comprehended as a boy, only a few easily understand it. It is a tricky truth, I can confirm that. It needs to be said many times before the vastness of its meaning hits you with full force. But, once it hits you, it will change you forever.
How can one live with the knowledge that everything one has done, does, and will do is just the result of an easily predictable chain of causes and reasons? And how can one go on thinking about oneself as a free person? And, if one is not free, then what is he/she?
That summer boyish afternoon turned weird, was my first step on the long journey towards real freedom. This first step is valid for anyone and it is the same for everyone. It may happen differently, sometimes later in life, sometimes earlier; sometimes as a result of a tragedy, illness or loss, sometimes as a result of too much joy. But it happens to many people, as it happened to me. It is the experience of the confinement insight.
In one moment you see yourself as a free person, in another, your precious freedom disintegrates into a colorful lie.
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes. Khalil Gibran
Confinement insights are not so rare. They happen here and there. The false freedom has gaps in it; it is not perfect, because the freedom fairy tale is not perfect. So, it crashes from time to time. People see flaws, inconsistencies, repetitions, recurrences, all kinds of signs that there is something very wrong with their notion of being free.
In fact, such things happen more often than it seems. However, only a few people, usually after a series of more frequent confinement insights, start to take them seriously. We live in a world that, for one reason or another, does not support freedom. Bondage, restrictions, control, and "there is nothing new under the Sun" mentality are all-prevailing. If you have a confinement insight, you will probably not be able to speak with anyone. If you do find someone to speak with, you will receive a hidden or not so hidden negation and denial of your experience. "Your thinking is wrong", you will be told. "You are just tired and stressed out. Look at the bright side, take a few days off, rest properly, find a shrink, go and meditate... All this will pass, and you will be happy again. We are indeed free, but sometimes, you know, it seems that we are not. Just disregard those moments. Ignore them, and they will run away like bad dreams, run away from the dawn. Do not give up, and all will be well again."
And it will be, for sure. For some time. Until another confinement insight.
Your quest will start at the moment when you admit the confinement. If you persist in the denial of the non-liberated situation, you cannot move forward. When you understand, accept and endure the impact of "we think we are free, but we are not" insight, you are then ready for the path towards true awakening. Until then the confinement walls of your prison are firmly secured by your misunderstanding of the situation you are in.
