Change of Mind: Freedom

Free - dom [free – duh m] n. – 1. Exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
2. The power to determine action without restraint.
3. The state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint.

Of all the definitions of freedom, there is not one that talks about internal freedom. External, action, physical restraint – they all consider freedom as only an outside condition. And up until a few days ago, that’s exactly what freedom to me was. So while reading Kite Runner, I asked myself, is there such a thing as internal freedom? Can you be constrained, forced, or controlled, by something internal? So my new answer to this question is why yes, yes you can.
Amir, the main character in this story, is full proof, that internal freedom does exist, and that he lives with a secret that makes him internally enslaved. His feelings of loneliness, disconnection with reality, guilt, and fear, are all pieces of evidence that inside he feels anything but liberated.
My definition of freedom before reading this story was exactly what Webster thought as well – freedom is physical. That nothing can keep you internally imprisoned. When I thought of freedom, I thought of the Civil war. I thought of the Holocaust and the detention camps. I thought of Paul Revere. I thought of Martin Luther King. I didn’t think that your mind, your thoughts, your feelings, were something that could be caged and locked up as well.
So then, I asked myself another question, is internal detainment something that is brought upon by an outside source, or can you, yourself, bring upon internal imprisonment? This is where my definition of freedom changed again. For Amir, the feeling of freedom was something that he denied himself. After he watched Hassan get raped, he limited and perhaps totally cut off his notion of internal freedom.
As I evaluated how Amir felt internally confined, I realized that internal freedom is something that exists in a lot of other places, although it may, at times, be disguised. For example, similar feelings of lack of internal freedom are evident in women who are abused by men. The thoughts that they are powerless and alone are similar to what Amir felt. Initially, I would have perceived abused womens lack of freedom to be external; but I realize that much of their lack of freedom is internal, too.
The biggest piece of evidence that lead me to change my perspective of freedom was when Amir described what “the past” meant to him - “That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out" (pp. 1). For Amir, the past finds a way to interfere and incarcerate his emotions and feelings, which causes him to feel internall imprisoned. In response this influences his external actions.
In conclusion, this book, so far, has completely changed my definition of freedom. No longer will I say freedom, and only think that you can be restrained physically, because I have learned that imprisonment and lack of freedom can be internal as well. No longer will I think that internal detainment is impossible without external enslavement, because Amir’s story has proved otherwise. No longer, is freedom or lack thereof, Paul Revere, the Civil War, the Holocaust, but it is also Amir and abused women. No longer is freedom only physical.