FREEDOM

FREEDOM by Tim Jacobs

(When thought of as unlocked)

I often get asked how it feels to know I’m gonna be free in a matter of weeks. When I look inside to answer that, I get to realizing that freedom can be spoken of in a multitude of degrees, whether it is figuratively or literally. For me, it’s amazing to explore the contrast of freedom and the levels of it that I now possess. Physically speaking, when I was “free” to the world at large, I was locked up in my mind to ideologies that held me captive and restrained my growth. Trying to make the transition from boyhood to adulthood, I messed up and took a left where I shoulda took a right.

The route I thought would take me into manhood took me deep into death’s door and the abyss of getting out of that maze has the I.Q. test of all tests. To realize I was mentally trapped by pre-configured roles of my culture. The stark realization that the efforts I put into the identity I defined myself by were worthless and leading closer and closer to my ultimate demise. I was in a mid life crisis before I was even in the mid of my life!

When my body was allowed to go where it pleased, my mind was in prison to ganhsta ideas. Trapped without a help in the world. Ironically, now that my body is restricted and can’t come and go as it pleases, my mind is liberated and free as I sit in a cell that’s as big as most people’s bathroom. I am more in tune with myself; more in control of my emotions and elevated in my spirit. My understandings are concrete about what I am responsible to do as a man and why. I have 20/20 clarity to where I want to go and how to get there. No more is there a limitation blocking me saying “not a through street”. Even with two violent felonies defining me under my record, I feel freer than I ever did when I had the petty arrests as a child.

I now recognize that being incarcerated is not only defined by tangible shackles and locks but also by intangible shackles and locks that on willing and unwillingly picks up as binding agents on his journey through life. It’s hard to express the ambivalent feelings I have had during these 11 years and buried physically under concrete fortresses but yet, spirituality soaring like a roaming eagle. In my deepest recesses, I have been free for years but the aches and pains of my physical imprisonment being incarcerated has been torment for me and my family. The lack of freedom to go and stop when most desired has been the greatest thorn in my side.

Now with 4 weeks ahead of me before that choice is restored, I sit and think “How many other ready able bodies are out there…so called “free” but locked down with iron cuffs in the mind? How many other young men are trapped and tricked into romanticizing the “G” as the pinnacle of male hood? How many other inmates are trapped in a convict code that hinders their ultimate success? I can only wonder.

I was once told that you gotta be hungry and really want to change in order to change and there is truth in that but it’s not the ultimate truth because change can take place on subtle levels that build up to be major changes. It takes place slowly when truth is restored where falsehoods took precedent.

Taking the veil off, what was taken as a given or a natural belief is the way to help lead a man to the fountain of rejuvenation. When you can show that you Choose daily the course of your life by not your actions, but by your thinking, you can become a catalyst in a man’s greater development. Actions come from thoughts. Thoughts are birthed by emotions they say, so where do emotions come from? Our surroundings and those around us? If so, that would mean we are robots and our brains possess us but it’s the other way around. We control our emotions. We posses our brains and we give it the stimuli to produce greatness or nothingness.

Either we do it consciously or not. It’s working non-stop either way. Freedom is a choice when speaking of it figuratively, so is love. These aren’t things given and taken away. They are all a choice of the mind.

When I think of what sets ahead of me in 4 weeks, in the sense of the literal freedom, I am elated. Now to be able to combine the two greatest blessings of mankind; free mind and free movement, I am almost fully restored to my God given image. Just without an Eve.

Had I been released years earlier, would I be walking out in freedom? No. I don’t believe I would. My transformation wasn’t fully completed from young man into real man. My mind still entertained bits and pieces that would of damaged my highest potential. But God is good and in charge of everything and I know He’s leading me into fulfilling the destiny He has for me by my choices of aligning with virtue.

When I was free, I was my own worst enemy. I was hitting the brakes on my own success. Now that I am imprisoned, I’m my best asset thanks to His spirit which knows no limits. Embarking back into the “free world” after 11 years in captivity… 11 years in the wilderness, I now see the outline of the skyline with a new sense of appreciation and awe. The bondage is off and I have the urge to explore this beautiful life of mine. What I once took for granted, stuff I took as a given, such as seeing my mother or going and getting a hamburger, building relationships with the opposite sex, wearing the jeans and colors of my liking. All those small things of that same nature I now hold with a greater reverence.

Freedom now holds a new found significance to me when I think of its concept and meaning; not only physically, but spiritually and mentality, how when all three are combined with that one blessing of liberation, just that one blessing, a great story begins to unfold!!