Hostage Negotiations

I make frequent jest on the topic of being held hostage by my feline companion but this is usually a metaphor for the reality that I am the hostage of my own taking. My self-imposed restraints stem from the burdens of conformity, conformity to a society that does a little for me as I do for it. I have never been one to feel the need to be part of the masses who blindly follow the person ahead of them, believing the whole time that there is an experienced guide at the front of the pack that is leading everyone to a place of comfort. I lean toward questioning everything that is presented as fact and considering that which is not. The path to freedom, the greater personal freedom, has yet to be taken. My prison is my thoughts and feelings of obligation to participate in the social structure by which I am surrounded. My freedom is in knowing that I do not have to participate in that which I do not to enhance my life.

For a large part of my life, I assumed that I needed to pattern my life in much the same way as those around me had chosen to do. Having been trained as an observer from an early age, I am usually never the first person to dive into the waters of undetermined depth. This has been well suited for me as I have had the opportunity to assist a few other who have found themselves stuck, head first, in the mud that dwells just below the surface. I was under the spell of the force applied by assuming I was surrounded by peers and after assisting one to pull their head out of the mud, I would then join them in the shallow pool all in the guise of feeling like part of a community. As our galactic real estate has made numerous completions of it's route, I find that I am less inclined to join in the mud bath with my fellow swine.

I have successfully negotiated my release from the prisons of my past and have chosen a path which allows me to be my own guide through the uncharted region that lies ahead. I no longer feel the obligation to join an activity for the soul purpose of not holding myself in solitary confinement. I am now able to move along at my own pace and investigate all available options before deciding which way to progress. It has been such a liberating experience to ignore the Sheppard and move away from the flock. The opportunities for learning through discovery pays dividends exponential in comparison to the lessons repeated by another that might not have first person reference either.

My freedom to discover all which surrounds me has lead me out of the bondage of the desire to belong. It has also lead me to the realization that I have only made it from the cell block to the yard of the incarceration of my mind. I have discovered that I am still restrained by the limitations imposed by my analytical nature and the inability to take a path on a whim or by faith in possibility that I could find my way through a random algorithms. I find my current confinement to be binding by the same freedoms I had negotiated for when I released myself from the feelings of fitting in. I now find that this dog is just on a longer leash when all he wants is to sit on the porch at this stage in his life.