Sounds Like Freedom
October 11th, 2007
Being free is a universal need. Wherever there are living beings there are personal and social movements towards love, understanding and being free.
I have enjoyed exploring what it means to be free by using processes that are themselves free. I play and record improvised music and also host a radio show where I interview people about social change and spirituality.
The Great Leap Forward airs weekly on Free Radio Santa Cruz, 101.1 FM, www.freakradio.org The radio station is an experiment in being free by being the media without any outside authority; FRSC is commercial-free, collectively-run and has been operating without a license from the US government since 1995.
Ever since I did an interview with Native American activist/musician John Trudell, I often choose to use the words “being free” instead of the word “freedom.” He pointed out to me that freedom has become “a habitual, lazy abstraction.” Trudell offered his personal way of liberating freedom; “Life is about responsibility,” he told me. “Freedom is an abstraction. Responsibility is not.”
In an interview with performance artist Laurie Anderson, I asked about the lyrics from her song Statue of Liberty; “Freedom is a scary thing / Not many people really want it.” She told me that, “A lot of people are scared of the responsibility that comes with freedom. The idea that you’re the only one in charge is too much for people.”
To be free is to experience life as it unfolds, without borders or rules. When we feel free, there are no conditions or authority that we accept or deny, submit to or rebel against. The authority of science, religion or politics can be helpful in communicating ideas that point to reality, but ideas can become a restriction if their meaning is codified and if free interpretation is sacrificed.
To be free is to be conscious that we have a choice in the way that we experience reality.
Marshall Rosenberg is the founder of Nonviolent Communication and in my interviews with him I’ve been reminded that we each choose where we place our attention in every moment. We have been taught to think that we are not free in how we experience reality; we may believe that the words and actions of others cause the feelings that we experience.
In this way we easily become slaves to moral judgment and we focus our attention on receiving rewards and avoiding punishment from teachers, parents, friends, lovers and everyone. Marshall Rosenberg turned it around this way, “People who are in touch with their feelings don’t make good slaves.”
The concept of time is also an authority that we trade our freedom for. To be free from the past and the future is to experience reality without conditions. When habitual tendencies are not present, reality is experienced with a curiosity and openness in the present and not within a closed relationship with the authority of past / future.
Become your own authority. Be free. “Be a lamp unto yourself,” said Buddha. “Do it yourself,” said Ian MacKaye from the punk bands Minor Threat and Fugazi.
Our individual expressions of being free are diverse and independent, yet interconnected. In Man’s Search For Meaning, Viktor Frankl writes, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.”
By John Malkin
Sounds of Freedom is my book of interviews with 16 musicians speaking about social change and spirituality including Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Ani DiFranco, Utah Phillips, The Indigo Girls, Boots Riley, John Trudell, Michelle Shocked and Tom Morello. Sounds of Freedom has an introduction by Thich Nhat Hanh and comes with a music CD with one song from each of the artists interviewed.
Check out Sounds of Freedom at the Parallax Press website: www.parallax.org. I am currently putting together a book about punk rock and spirituality. Please contact me if you would enjoy being involved in this project or if you’d like more information about my writings, interviews or music: jsmalkin@hotmail.com
