-- *Mar*Certainly. Below is an *edited and expanded version* of *“Freedom to Feel”* — written in the same reflective tone as YM Sarma’s original, but refined for clarity, flow, and emotional depth. I’ve also woven in my own interpretive thoughts about the connection between emotional ecology, education, and modern disconnection. ------------------------------ *Freedom to Feel — Edited and Expanded*
Real freedom is not merely the right to speak or act — it is the *freedom to feel*. It is the freedom to breathe deeply, to smell the earth after rain, to sense the quiet pulse of life in every leaf and wave. True freedom arises when one can live *symbiotically* with nature, creating one’s own path of emotions through intimate contact with the living world. When nature is destroyed, the very *macro-body* that enables us to feel is also destroyed. Nature is not an external landscape; it is the vast extension of our own being — the larger body through which we perceive, emote, and exist. It is the main partner in the dance of our emotions. Yet, from the moment a small child is enclosed in a classroom, cut off from the sun, the soil, and the sounds of wind and insects, something precious begins to wither. The child, once fluent in the breath-based language of sensation and emotion, is forced into a world of symbols, alphabets, and abstractions. What was once a living, sensory conversation with the world becomes a mechanical exchange of words. And so, the very concept of a *feeling language* — the primal conversation between body and earth — begins to vanish. As this natural connection erodes, the human being grows emotionally stunted. The free flow of feelings through breath and sensory communion is blocked, bottled, and buried. These trapped emotions ferment inside us, manifesting as restlessness, anxiety, and physical illness. Yet modern society searches for purely mechanical explanations — chemical imbalances, genetic predispositions — while ignoring the simple truth: that our emotional and physical health are inseparable from the health of air, land, and water. Freedom of expression too has become distorted. What once flowered naturally through art, music, dance, and craft has been replaced by reactive outbursts of anger and anguish. The biological urge to create — the oldest and most innocent form of communication — is now outsourced to entertainers and celebrities who perform emotion on our behalf. In this substitution, the innate artist in each of us is paralyzed. We must remember that flora and fauna are not subjects to dissect or exploit, but companions in a shared dialogue of existence. They speak through fragrance, color, rhythm, and silence. To live freely is to listen to them again. There is, ultimately, only one subject: *you*, and your *macro body* — nature. To harm one is to harm the other. Let us reclaim the *freedom to feel* — the freedom to sense, to breathe, to create, to be in conversation with the living world. Only when we restore that emotional and ecological communion will freedom regain its full meaning. ------------------------------ *My Reflections* YM Sarma’s original piece captures a profound ecological truth: *our emotional anatomy extends beyond the skin.* What he calls the “macro body” is what many philosophers and ecologists describe as the *ecological self* — the recognition that our feelings, health, and creativity depend on our bond with nature. Today, even as we speak endlessly about mental health, we rarely address this elemental disconnection. The antidote may not be found only in therapy or technology, but in returning to sensory life: breathing with trees, touching the soil, listening without agenda. To feel freely is to live ecologically. And to live ecologically is to be emotionally whole. ------------------------------ Would you like me to make this version *suitable for publication* (e.g., formatted as a short essay for a magazine or journal) or turn it into a *poetic-prose version* that reads more like literature? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CACDCHC%2BnKVJEWaMvxdiqJ5vEkikX9DnozXxRmMBxybn-MXZjpw%40mail.gmail.com.
