Birds aren't free

I was in my car this morning and saw a bird flying in front of me. I think he was playing, he was swooping up and down and kind of seemed to be goofing around. For a second I was jealous, "He can fly away right now, just go up and keep going until he gets tired, and then wake up tomorrow and keep going some more." My car, my street, my whole life felt like a miserable prison cell in comparison.

Except I was jealous of a lie. Birds aren't really free, not at all. No animals are free. They have very predictable, instinctual lives that have nothing to do with waking up one morning and just having a silly adventure, or leaving and never coming back. Like my mom said, who knows if they have emotions and questions the way we do - they might! - they do not just fly away from their predestined, instinct-driven lives for no reason. They can't, or at least they never do.

We can, though. We humans are the freest beings on the planet. If we feel shackled or helpless or hopeless, it is the fault of no being but ourselves. We should be jealous of nothing, because we alone are the creatures that have total control over our lives. Any prison we find ourselves in is one of our own making.