the Cry for Inner Freedom

I just finished reading Baldwin's "The Fire Next Time" and the cry that runs through the book with refined lyricism still bores within my flesh of human. 

I want to be free... I want to be... Oh no, I am being cheated... I don't feel great... and the words are poorly articulated because they arise from a mirage where nothing seems to be well named. And however they are articulated, their hidden import is so darn clear.

You will find people who transform the expression into a sigh, into a cynical laughter, or some such expression. In the depths of it all, there is fear... the fear that others may put a finger at what we really are, the fear that we might lose something or someone, the fear of hurting. The fear of letting them see our fear, of making a difference or being what the world doesn't expect us to be...

The cry is for freedom, and it echoes everywhere in the world today. You will hear it in the by-ways of the cities, down the slumps of big cities, or up there where the well-to-do camp in mansions of lapis lazuli. You'll notice something uneasy in the smiles that look back to you when you walk through the crowd... In the laughter, you feel something feigned, something that isn't honest, that doesn't come from the reality that inhabit us. It goes with this desire to look good even when everything seems to go wrong. The great laugh and smile as though nothing goes wrong in their lives, of course, they have to make the weak think that life is easy with them: they have a mask and they have got to keep it on.

... and the pain is that of not feeling that we are who we were meant to be. The pain of the cry to be free from our own caprices or the caprices within which our world has thrust us. The truth is we are manipulated and manipulative. The truth is, we would hardly survive without the mask through which we see the world and through which we reveal ourselves. The truth is simple: it is that truth is painful, and we are very often afraid to put a finger on it because we would then know who we are and what the world sees us to be.

And would you like to be free? The answer goes deeper that what you may imagine. And it is the simplest thing you could as well imagine. It is just about letting things and people be what and who they are. It is looking at reality with naked eyes... letting its speak to you without forcibly willing to hear just things that please you. Accepting things that break you and breaking things you must break; letting go of what you can't hold and holding onto what returns to your right. Knowing that you can't please everyone and that you cannot find an answer to every enigma is a sure path towards liberation. It is accepting that you are weak, that you could also be helpless, that somewhere you are hurt, without hiding your tears, without covering the pain.
It is always and everywhere, a noble and an act of freedom to be just who you are. To see the world the way your sight goes... and follow your dreams with courage.