Unchained: A Reflection on True Emancipation
A couple of days ago, there was an earthquake.
As I watched footage from a living room security camera, something caught my eye:
A woman, dressed casually in black activewear, was sitting on a lounge, watching TV.
The moment the earthquake hit, she didn’t hesitate — she immediately picked up her toddler and ran.
What struck me was how natural, how instinctive it was.
In today’s world, we often speak of “emancipation” — and alongside it, we have outsourced the raising of the next generation to the childcare industry, operating at an industrial scale.
Yet in that split second, all the theories and modern constructs fell away:
The mother — not a system, not a corporation, not an ideology — the mother herself carried her child to safety.
A few minutes later, a sharp contrast appeared on my screen.
News coverage showed Katy Perry and several other women, dressed in gleaming blue suits, boarding a spacecraft.
It was framed as a triumph: the first all-women space crew — smiling, laughing, proud.
On the surface, it was a celebration of progress.
But a subtle question stirred in my mind:
Is this the peak?
Vast sums of money burned to momentarily escape Earth’s gravity, while so many problems on the ground remain unaddressed.
I wondered about the environmental cost, the deeper meaning, the real legacy.
The next morning, at the gym, another layer unfolded.
I saw that Katy Perry had issued an apology to her fans after some backlash — the reason didn’t matter.
What mattered was the pattern:
Even those who seem to “have it all” are prisoners of their own success.
Artists, celebrities, athletes — they are no freer than the rest of us.
They are chained to the expectations of ratings, fans, advertisers, critics.
Even someone like Elon Musk — arguably the richest man alive — is not immune.
Public opinion, investor sentiment, political pressure — the chains simply become golden.
But they are chains all the same.
I realized:
It’s not just celebrities.
It’s journalists afraid to lose their jobs.
It’s radio hosts wary of upsetting sponsors.
It’s everyday people measuring their worth by likes, shares, promotions, and paychecks.
People are worshipping different gods,
but the principle is the same:
Whatever you fear losing, you become its servant.
And yet, there is another path.
“Say: Truly, my prayer, my sacrifice, my living and my dying are for Allah, the Lord of all the worlds.”
(Surah Al-An’am, 6:162)
When you connect yourself only to your Creator — when you fear only Him — you become truly free.
The maximum anyone can do is take your wealth, your job, your life — but not your soul.
Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor, once wrote:
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
And Allama Iqbal, speaking of the true free man — the Mard-e-Momin — echoed the same spirit:
“خُدی کو کر بلند اتنا کہ ہر تقدیر سے پہلے،
خُدا بندے سے خُود پوچھے، بتا تیری رضا کیا ہے”
“Raise yourself to such heights that before every destiny,
God Himself asks you, ‘What is it that you desire?’”
When you lose the fear of death,
when you lose the fear of losing material possessions
that were never truly yours to begin with —
you are emancipated.
Rich or poor, powerful or forgotten — we all came into this world empty-handed.
And we will leave it the same way.
The true measure of freedom is not how high you can climb,
how loudly you can laugh, or how many eyes you can dazzle.
It is how lightly you can walk on this Earth,
carrying only faith, courage,
and a soul unchained.
Comments
Post a Comment