To you

13 years ago, if someone asked me what true Freedom was, I would say it was the ability to go through school without homework or exams.

If you ask me now what true freedom is, I would not know the direct answer to it…what really is the freedom that we call freedom? The sentence I just wrote—did that make sense to you? But how would you know if it did make sense or not because I’m the one who wrote and asked you.

Though, if I may ask, is the right Wing I see the same left wing you see?

Hajime Isayama poured this philosophy through an art of expressive masterpiece, Shingeki no Kyojin, that captivated me for years and set a new reality for us to re-think and observe on what rumbling Ground we live in, the ground of life, the ground of what life is, or the ground of what life has sealed. The ambiguous branch of ‘Freedom’ spirals into two lights in the dystopian world: the first light tinted with burning scarlet flames, reflecting the characters’ will of fire, stroked with an essence of prestige pearls that flickers with the light squeezing through its forest frames to touch the white wings of freedom, fighting for the right of humanity to be set free from its caged walls, and every step they take, every blade that pierce through its neck, and every friend that loses its light, they still push forward and chant their salute just to grab their own choice of freedom. The second light, the other wing, flows with sapphire and soothes itself around the necks of the fresh ones as they absorb their own vision of their right of freedom, even when that meant being inhumane to accomplish something human.

If one could ask, should my red be your blue? The hero villain answered the thought-provoking tale by justifying and rebelling as he, himself, takes the path of solitude to define his own color of freedom: by being the slave for his friends’ freedom to taste the twinkling lilac of the salt lake, the minimum yet stolen choice. Giving back what was stolen was his violet freedom.

Living your life in the philosophy that “We’re born free” fuels the wings of freedom to fly across the boundaries set by the world we live in. Just as for the hero, our definition of freedom is taking back what was stolen from us; it could be the right to education, the right to live in peace, the right to love someone. If we are caged from what we have the choice and the right to do, in what colors will we see?

So, isn’t the right wing I see the same left wing you see?

Penned By:

Rtr. Heidi Hettiarachchi

Editorial Committee Member 23.24