Fraudulent Freedom

HOJ boys playing freely in Dahilayan
A joy to watch children being children!

'Why do they run?'

I can't recount how many times I have been asked this question or of the frequency it reoccurs in my own head as we contend with this complex process of trying to understand these children.

BUT I actually think the answer is quite simple....extending beyond the enticement of the street and its deceptive lure of 'freedom' .....Truly there is nothing 'free' about life on the streets.

 It is a prison of poverty, addiction, and danger and yet has a powerful magnetic pull like a bait persuading their distorted perception that it offers something 'more'......a fake mirage.

The escape effort is a run from themselves.....Others choose food, or alcohol, work, TV, holidays, computer games, drugs, facebook, whatever....to loosen the stress, relieve the pain and distract from the real issues. We each select an alternative release as a flight elope - Our momentary affairs from reality that temporarily offer us some relief and divert from having to take responsibility.

To select 'fight' instead of 'flight' requires courage to face the truth of failures and weaknesses. We have to break the crooked illusion that running away is a deliverance. Until we all confront our tendency to seek artificial freedom we remain in jails of our own construction; disconnected from truth and separated from the opportunity of discovering who we really are. 

To choose REAL freedom requires sacrifice, a price too high for many to unlock what really lies beneath the surface. The preference for comfort and familiarity is more tempting than the battle to overcome ourselves. 

The street draws all of us......but the choice is ours.....to wrestle or to run?......and our selection determines everything.