10. Freedom As Beauty
“Beauty will save the world,” Dostoevsky once wrote. The idea is, in itself, beautiful, but how will it save the world? Is there an understanding of beauty that can assuage the heart of fear and end oppression? Is there a form of beauty that exceeds all others — a universal beauty that is the essence of life?
Beauty is so many things. It’s a feeling. To be stirred in one’s heart is beautiful. It is beautiful to see courage triumph over adversity. To feel solidarity with someone else’s struggle is beautiful. Kindness and loyalty are beautiful.
Certain states of consciousness are beautiful, too. Struggling for what one believes in is beautiful. Standing up for the greater good is beautiful. Reconciliation and anything that interrupts a self-denigrating habit are beautiful. Overcoming complacency is beautiful.
People, art, a poem, a smile, a photograph — anything that provokes or stimulates us to inhabit a new aspect of reality is beautiful. And peace might be the greatest beauty of all.
But could there be anything more sacred, more immediate, more beautiful than freedom?
Take away someone’s basic human rights, one’s freedom, and generally speaking, they suffer the greatest loss. Can we imagine what it would mean not to be able to move about freely, or to speak openly, or to practice our form of spirituality, for fear of imprisonment or harm.
Even for a day, it’s hard to imagine. Nelson Mandela — the pillar of strength and wisdom that he is — said that during the twenty-six years he spent in a South African prison that “I thought continually of the day when I would walk free.”