An honest and thoughtful portrait from Swedish Filmmaker Mattais Olsson, founder of Campfire Stories: Inspiring Change Through Film….
“I’ve been thinking a lot about freedom lately. Not the type referred to in American political speech, mind you. Not the “Free to choose whichever health care plan you want” type freedom. And not the freedom you might feel while on vacation. Or even the kind you’d feel when mountain climbing or sky diving. The freedom I’ve been pondering is of a kind that’s almost unimaginable to the people of our time. The kind of freedom a bird has. The kind of freedom people, too, used to have before they settled down and became farmers. Yes, that’s it! I’m talking hunter gatherer level freedom. Wandering between the horizons at day, marvelling at the stars at night type freedom. The kind of freedom that might have existed before the word ‘freedom’ was ever invented.
“And I ask myself, is that kind of freedom possible to achieve today? Or is the automatic failure already built into the word ‘achieve’? Was that kind of freedom lost forever when the first fence was built 10 000 years ago? I certainly don’t know of anybody who gets even close to enjoying that kind of freedom. Or, wait… Come to think of it, there is one person I know who could almost qualify. My friend Randy who, at least from my vantage point, seems to live, for the most part, in freedom. Maybe not when compared to a bird or a pre-agriculture person, but certainly when compared to me. He has checked out from the daily grind of society and lives on a boat just outside Manhattan in New York.”
For more films by Mattias Olsson, visit campfire-stories.org
Post a Comment