The little girl who wanted to live a life of Freedom

Once upon a time there was a little girl who knew all she wanted was a life of freedom. She grew up in the Land of Safety, a mythical place where no one ever got hurt. Everyone died peacefully in their beds of old age, Alzheimer’s and arthritis did not exist and poverty was nothing more than a story of days long past. Even mental illness was long eradicated, everyone was healthy and children never died.

 The Land of Safety achieved this because its inhabitants had developed a suit that protected the human body from catching any virus or bacteria and protected bones from breaking. The suit self-cleaned and never dirtied or smelled bad, so people could sleep in it. Even sexual intercourse was possible in the suit, with a carefully and custom designed extension that protruded inwards or outwards, according to personal preference. Babies no longer needed to grow in the bellies of mothers, which just caused all sorts of complications anyway. Instead, they were grown in artificial uteruses, which provided better housing and nurturing facilities than any natural counterpart possibly could. People were safe, and so was life. 

Our protagonist, however, was not satisfied.

She dreamt of feeling the wind on her skin, of feeling the touch of another human skin on hers and she ached to do something dangerous, to live a life of freedom.

“I do not care for safety,” she often thought, “I will live my life of freedom, even if it kills me!”

One day, when she was all grown up, she decided to take off her suit and run away. She had no idea where to, only that it should be a place of freedom. She came upon a crossroads with several signs pointing in different directions. One pointed towards where she came from and said: “Land of Safety” and the one pointing straight ahead said: “Land of Danger”.

The girl considered this option and was drawn to it. The moment she stepped in, though, she was afraid of all the dark and horrible things hiding in the shadows. She had to run several times from big drooling monsters and hide from wolves as big as trees and the people she met, felt dangerous too! Everyone was afraid and mistrustful of each other, it was just horrible! She never thought there could be a worse place than the Land of Safety, but she had just found it. If living a life of freedom meant living a life of danger, she did not want it. How free can you be anyway, if you are always in danger? 

Disappointed, she returned to the signpost and to her big surprise and relief, saw that there was another sign partly hidden by some vines, pointing straight towards the middle between the other two. She brushed away the leaves and then could read: “Land of Happiness”.

The girl realized that this was her way to go. Of course! What other road could be better? The only question that stayed in her mind was whether she would find freedom there, because that was all she wanted, so she decided to start asking around the moment she arrived.  

When she entered the mythical Land of Happiness, she never bothered to look around, but spoke to the first person she saw: “Are you living a life of freedom?”
“Haha, absolutely not,” the man said, ” I made the commitment to go to work every day and I love my work more than anything, I would not exchange it for freedom under any circumstance, the job makes me feel inspired, enthusiastic… and paradoxically enough… free!! Free to have a successful career!” 
“So you exchanged your freedom to be free.. for the freedom to have a job? How interesting!”
The man chuckled and walked away, as if he knew some secret she was unaware of.

She continued and asked a lady she saw singing to her baby and asked again: “Are you living a life of freedom?”
“I made a commitment to this baby for my entire life, and I love him more than anything, to be a mother for him I gave my freedom away!”
The mother sighed, threw a look of pure adoration on to her child and completely ignored our heroine. 

The girl became more confused now. So you could give away your freedom to be free to be a mother? Was that worth it? She continued to ask others in the land of happiness whether they lived lives of freedom and they all answered her immediately:

“I made a commitment to this woman and vowed to never be with another and she makes me so happy… I love her more than anything, including freedom.”

The woman standing next to him put her arm around him and agreed: “I am not free either, I committed to my man and I love him much more than my freedom!”

The couple kissed and looked as if they were in heaven.

The girl took some time to process all this and thought long and hard, until a prince came by on his white horse. 
“What or you sitting there all alone for, honey?”
“I am trying to figure out how to live a life of freedom, but that seems to be impossible!”
“It is!” exclaimed the prince, “To live by definition is to not be free, it means you are bound to your body that needs to be taken care of. Every freedom you choose to be important to you means there are other freedoms you say goodbye too. If you choose to be free to be a traveler, you deny yourself the freedom to have a home. A life of freedom is a mirage, it is nothing but an unrealistic idea. You can choose a life of safety or a life of danger and not be free at all, or you can choose a life of happiness instead, which means to be able to give your freedom away, if that is what makes you happy. And what we discovered here in the Land of Happiness is one of the greatest truths of the universe…”

“Please tell me!”, pleaded the girl. 
“If you stay here, you yourself will find out eventually,” chuckled the prince, and he ushered his horse to start moving. 
“Wait!!” Shouted the girl, running over to the prince on the horse. 
She looked into his eyes and for the first time in years no longer felt the desire to be free…

She wanted to be his instead. 

Private property. 

Fully exclusive. 

VIP. 

Sextoy. 

They made the kind of love that made the ground tremble and the tremors could be felt all the way up to the Land of Safety, where immediate precautions were taken to protect against future earthquakes. 

As they disentangled, the girl found herself in a place of full enlightenment, and she knew the truth the prince had hinted at before:
“In the end, we do not want to be free, we want to belong to each other!”

They both laughed and fell deeper and deeper in love. Many more earthquakes followed, as the girl became a princess and later, a queen and a mother. And so they lived, in the Land of Happiness, happily ever after.

The end.