About Rebels

“What we do in life echoes in eternity.”
-William Wallace

Yesterday, I watched a video on YouTube called The Lie We Live. I do not agree with everything that was said; however, the message did make me think of the following:

Another morning, another day, another Monday, another week, another month in the year of us waking up to the sound of the alarm on our phone, only to put it on “snooze” and go back to sleep for five more minutes before the second alarm goes off. After that, out of bed and into the shower we go, tediously trying to wake ourselves up with the contact of hot or cold water as we scrub our face and body with soap and co.

We get dressed. We skip breakfast or have a very quick unhealthy one before heading to that somewhere we dislike, beit school, university or work. We go through the same schedule everyday, do the same things there, anxiously await the end of the day in order to go back home or attend some obligation we might have. Even if we call them “activities”, there are days we simply do not feel like attending to our obligations.

Once this is over, we finally get home, have dinner, go to bed, and stay on our phones until we fall, only for the wheel to start turning again the following day.

Is that really all that there is to life? Is this what it means to actually grow up? To be free and do whatever we want? But are we really free?

“Your heart is free. Have the courage to follow it”.
–Braveheart

Are we free? A question that is as old as the hills. One philosophers have and continue to struggle with.  For some, the likes of Hegel and Epictetus, freedom is a state of mind that is reached when one truly understands one’s living conditions and everything in the surrounding, as a journey rather than a destination. For others, such as Rousseau and Kant,

“Freedom is the power to choose our own chains”.

Meaning that freedom is actually an illusion, and that whenever we are faced with a choice, we find that there are several factors which will actually direct our choice, making it impossible to actually choose of our own free will. But I disagree; for:

“To be yourself in a world that tries, night and day, to make you just like everybody else… is to fight the greatest battle there is to fight, and to never stop fighting”.
–E.E. Cummings

Whether you are a fatalist, a determinist or even an anarchist, it is important to remember that we do have a choice, that we can always change our status quo. Whatever you are doing, if you are dissatisfied with it, then change it. Change your ways, change your words, change your world.

“Children are the boldest philosophers. They enter life naked, not covered by the smallest fig leaf of dogma, absolutes, creeds. That is why every question they ask is so absurdly naïve and yet so frighteningly complex”.
–Yevgeny Zamyatin

We often say that we only live once and that we should always do what makes us happy. If that is the case, then why do we remain chained to our routines? Why do we rarely try to do something new with our lives? Something more. And when we dare, why do we have to plan for those amazing things so far in advance? Why can’t we just change the way our days go by based on a simple snap of fingers? Is it because only fools rush in where angels fear to tread? Is change then the fruit of an impulse? I don’t think so. Change, like rebellion, is a conscious  act of free will that is most successful when it is the fruit of mature reflection.. 

I respect rebels because they decide to stand up for something that actually makes sense; something that allows them to truly live their lives to the very best, without yielding to chaos and anarchy. Rebels are not those people you see breaking windows and fighting policemen in the streets; they are also those who quit their jobs in order to pursue another career, travel around the world, follow their passions.

These people are the ones who are truly free. They are free from the chains of social dogma, social norms and the trap of “trying to fit in”.

“We all end up dead. It is just a question of how and why”.
–William Wallace