The Two Kinds of Freedom

A book about the dystopian future, Handmaid's Tale made me realize that there are so many freedoms that I take for granted.   Gilead is the end-product of an ultra-conservative group's destabilization and call for a new world order.  It tells of a world without choice, especially for women.  Women were stripped of all properties and all rights and were treated as chattels, judged according to their use in society.  We have the Wives, the Marthas, the Handmaids, etc.

"There is more than one kind of freedom...Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it."

 
Given the amount of freedom that I am enjoying today, it haunts me to think that there might come a time where I will only have freedom from choice, instead of the freedom to choose.  I hope it never happens in my lifetime.  I hope it never happens...Period.

"You can wet the rim of a glass and run your finger around the rim and it will make a sound. This is what I feel like: this sound of glass. I feel like the word shatter."