Life can imprison us. That is fact that young men and young women often fail to understand. They spend their entire lives relentlessly looking for that which they don’t have, but they think they need. As Bob Dylan said, “Don’t go mistaking paradise for that home across the road.” It isn’t paradise. In fact, it might be a prison for it will forever chain us to the responsibility of maintenance.

Henry David Thoreau when he was living on Walden Pond was offered a gift of a small door mat. He declined because he felt if he accepted he would have to clean it regularly and he felt that was too much trouble, so it was not worth the price.

Routine can also imprison us. We often do things just because we think we have to do them. But we don’t. Often, we are as free as a bird on a wire. But we don’t know it. Then we are imprisoned by routine. Then we must bolt for freedom. In the act of rebelling, we will understand we are free. Until then we are in jail. Daniel Klein in h is book Travels with Epicurus called it “radical existential freedom” and said it “is absolutely necessary for a happy life.”  I agree.

Epicurus was wise, for he said, “We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday affairs and politics.” I do not mean to say we should pay no attention at all to politics. We must recognize injustice and unkindness and speak up against it. If we don’t we facilitate injustice and thus contribute to the decay of society. We are then partly to blame. I am not saying we should follow the lead of the uber woke either. I am in favour of woke, which I see as awareness, but too much can be sickening. Like a basketball player who dribbles too much.

The key, I think is that we should not let politics dominate our lives.