Freedom From AND Freedom To—Let’s Celebrate Both

Our small tuxedo cat, Smooch, turns three today. We’re celebrating.  

In fact, our family has taken to celebrating the tiniest of wins, itsy-bitsy glimpses of good news, and small-step victories. Why? It’s because this year of Covid-19 has meant that we are surrounded by ever-ratcheting losses. 

It has not escaped my notice that prior to the election all the political emails I received were anti-Trump. Then they pivoted to anti-Emily Murphy. Then, once the election was called by the media, they ramped up to be anti-incumbent administration. And now that Ms. Murphy has done her duty, all the emails are about what Joe Biden is already doing wrong. 

Anyone else notice a pattern? Ralph Waldo Emerson was right when he said this, and he’s still right today. What you resist, persists. I almost always offer this notion up in speeches and sermons and invariably am asked to provide proof. 

I morph into a cartoon character telling a secret, look around as though making sure no is eavesdropping, and then whisper loudly, “Whatever you do, don’t think about pink elephants—” There’s always a pause, and a nervous laugh. I tend to follow-up with, “How long? How long did it take you to see pink elephants in your mind’s eye?” So’s you knows, it’s instantaneous. 

What is forbidden is temptation, Beloved. 

Sadly, many of my progressive, activist friends seem to be implicitly suggesting that unless we—some ephemeral group—win big, our little wins don’t count. We are implicitly forbidden to celebrate what did work out.  

So, yeah, there wasn’t a tsunami blue wave down the ticket. No, but there were lots of small wins. And unless we learn to celebrate them, we are in imminent danger of burn-out. 

David Dinkins, a former New York City mayor, died this week. In commemorating his contribution to the Big Apple, one of his co-workers said, “‘David gave us the freedom to imagine what neighborhoods could be,’ said Harvey Robins, who ran the Mayor’s Office of Operations and was a de facto grand master of innovation.” 

Celebrating little wins is a part of the freedom to imagine … anything. In fact, without the freedom to imagine, there is little hope of change. 

It has just now dawned on me, even as I type, that ‘freedom to …’ is what America stands for in my notion of it. 

So much of the polarization we’re suffering at the moment can be characterized as the constant tension between ‘freedom from’ and ‘freedom to.’ I think we have met at the crossroads of the two, and must decide amongst three choices.  

They are: freedom from, freedom to, and freedom from and to. 

I believe the only thoughtful choice is from and to. 

Here’s something that’s hard for me to celebrate: people who refuse to wear masks in this age of Covid-19, and yet …, and yet … I can, I do, I must celebrate a country where those exact same people are free to … make that choice. Inasmuch as I don’t really want my personal right to choose taken from me, it follows that I also cannot demand that the personal right to choose be taken from others. At the very same time, personal choices are not made in a vacuum. They affect others, and no one has the right to infect me through their personal choices. This is why I still think a national mask mandate is completely reasonable. 

We are lamenting what New York Times writer David Sax calls, our “prison[s] of digital luxury” in his article on analog reality. If I had a nickel for every Zoom complaint I’ve heard in the past eight months, I could pay the expenses of the rest of my natural life. And hey, how about celebrating that, as inadequate as it is, it is some way to connect despite its inadequacies? 

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, has an Op-Ed in this morning’s Times as well. She’s writing about losing her second child to miscarriage, and the heartbreak it engendered. [I’m so sorry for your loss, Duchess. It’s very painful, I know.] After just such a loss, she goes on to make a devastating list of ‘on top of all thats.’  

Here’s the kicker, “On top of all of this, it seems we no longer agree on what is true. We aren’t just fighting over our opinions of facts; we are polarized over whether the fact is, in fact, a fact. We are at odds over whether science is real. We are at odds over whether an election has been won or lost. We are at odds over the value of compromise.” 

We cannot celebrate this national holiday the way we always have. If we do, people will die. We are polarized about freedom from and freedom to. We’ve made it an either/or instead of a both/and. Either/or cannot stand as the ultimate way to make choices, Beloved. I think it’s either/or that is taking its sweet-ass time performing its swan song of death. 

Beloved, more often than not, the freedom to … is a cause for celebration because of what that makes us free from. Freedom from is equally a cause for celebration because of what that makes us free to. 

We live in a world based on the principle of polarity. Like that, don’t like it, either is fine. You can agree or disagree with the Principle of Gravity, too, but no matter your opinion, you’re still subject to its properties. 

The next time you make a choice based on either freedom, Beloved, please make sure you add into the mix a way to celebrate your successes as infinitesimal as they may be. Perhaps we’ll slowly amass tiny celebrations of joy, wonder, magic, and change enough all over the world to create a whole new world?

 Just like the one our little Smooch experiences every single moment of every single day.  

I have long known that our onomatopoetic interpretation of the sound cats make is erroneous. We tend to write it meow. It’s actually a clarion call for celebration which takes place only in the present. That’s what cats are saying; it’s what they’ve always said. Now. 

Happy Birthday, Smoochie. The treats are on the cat tree. 

Dr. Susan Corso is a spiritual teacher, the founder of iAmpersand, and the author of The Mex Mysteries, the Boots & Boas Books, and spiritual nonfiction. Her website is susancorso.com.