BACKGROUND

The 17th of April 2021 was the date of the first publication of this piece.

 I found it prudent to republish it now. 

Freedom is at the point of definitively being rebranded with an X, both locally and internationally. 

In my motherland, Zimbabweans are about to place an X against the names and faces of their preferred leaders in the August 2023 elections.

 On the international front, our most productive contemporary genius, Mr Elon Musk, is about to rebrand the most prominent virtual platform of free speech with an X. 

Nevertheless, total freedom is possible. By now, you should know where to find it. 

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

It has been a while since drawing doses or casting dice on this blog; serendipitously, the writer’s urge to write arrived when his compatriots remembered their country’s independence. 

Zimbabwe attained independence on the 18th of April in 1980.

She is turning 41 years on the morrow, and Zimbabwe seems to be going through a mid-life crisis in keeping with nature. 

Women act that way when they get to that age. 

Remember, geographical nomenclature is mostly effeminate; the reasoning behind such semantics is beyond my comprehension. 

All I know is that it makes a lot of sense. 

Your country is essentially your political ‘mother’.

The person (male or female) who leads your country is your paternal figurehead. 

Now the questions I ask you, dear reader, are “Who is sleeping with your mommy?” and “Who do you love more: mommy or daddy?”.

I have been chewing the cud on “independence and freedom”. 

Perhaps I got infested with this annoying brain worm while studying Prisoner’s Dilemma.

 I began asking myself myriad questions. 

The most important question I sought to resolve was, “Freedom from what?”. 

I beg my gentle readers’ pardon for going philosophical; what I am about to do is argue that “independence” does not exist. 

The only sub-type of ‘independence’ with the slightest chance of existence is ‘mental independence’. 

The other types of ‘independence’, including political and economic, are merely mirages and delusions. 

Please do not get me wrong; I celebrate my country’s independence judiciously. ’18 April’ HAD to happen; it was inevitable and imperative. Mine is simply a philosophical exposition. 

Independence is ‘breaking the stick.’

An apt philosophical illustration of the true meaning of independence is the famous philosophical anecdote of the monk and the stick.

The tale has several versions, but the elucidation remains intact in all variations.

Here goes the story:

A wise monk took a stick and posed a philosophical question to his students:

“This is a stick. If you call this a ‘stick’, I will beat you. But, if you do not call this a ‘stick’, I will beat you. So, what is this?”

The students were puzzled and alarmed. It seemed they were going to get punished for doing either or neither. 

We all know that when you find yourself in a position where your flesh is about to be involuntarily massaged, the best thing to do is buy time. One student did precisely that. He asked, “What do you mean, master?”. The wise monk replied:

“If you call this a stick, you fall into the trap of words,

but if you do not call it a stick, you contradict facts.

So what do you call it?”

The student monks thought hard and deeply for a moment. 

The sage had posed an onerous philosophical conjecture, a postulation with immediate physical consequences. 

Finally, one student monk got up (whether he was truly wise or just petrified, we will never know) and walked towards the stick. What he did next impressed the wise monk. 

He took the stick, broke it and threw it away.

Now, that is ‘freedom’! 

If you think deeply about this story, you will realise it has far-reaching applications. It even has personal relevance. 

Are you free? What is the ‘stick’ in your life? 

Every individual on this planet has a ‘stick’ in their life. One can never attain ‘freedom’ without breaking a ‘stick’. A prevalent error is replacing one ‘stick’ with another. 

Again, I ask, are you free?