‘Emancipate thyself from mental slavery’

“Mama told me…forget your lust for the rich man’s gold… all you need is in your soul… (and) don’t forget there is someone up above”… so go the famous lyrics from one of America’s favorite rednecks—the simple man if you will. The song got me thinking about life in general and somehow, through the unabashed ramblings of my fellow “Thinking Idiots,” I was inspired to write what follows. My brother tells me I’m biting off more than I can chew, so to be clear the views expressed herein are my personal opinions and not necessarily reflective of any member of my family or anyone associated with and/or working for NMPASI.

Above all else, I wholeheartedly believe that there is a God. It is perhaps the only unwavering, truly constant belief in my life and there has never been a single instant, regardless of how bleak life seemed to be, where I have ever entertained any notion to the contrary…God is and always has been. Still, my interpretations of God’s love may be vastly different from everyone and anyone around me thus I do take issue with some forms of religion and for sure some religions would take issue with me—that’s my opinion and I have the right to express it, so I will have my apple and eat it too.

In the context of more earthly ideas—let’s take political partisanship for instance—my general beliefs are, at best, a tangled mess of left, right, and wrong ideologies. Admittedly, I tend to lean on the right side more often than not, so I like to say that I’m a Republican with Democrat sensitivities (for whatever that’s worth). I think my friend said it best when he referred to himself as a “bleeding-heart, tree-hugging conservative.” The real point is that party politics can not define me, but my faith in a higher being and the ever-evolving people around me do. I won’t be held to hardliner, extremist views on either side of the political spectrum. I pick and choose what I believe to be important from both ends in support of the bigger picture, “one heart, one love.” We are all God’s children and each of us has the absolute, inalienable right to live our lives the way we see fit.

God himself granted us the gift of free will (Genesis 2:16) and yes, I would concede that God could be a woman, yet on the most basic levels, the morality police—whether conservative or liberal—continue to challenge the notion as if they created man or the heavens and earth. Ironically, it’s often the truest of believers, the churchgoers, who struggle the most with the idea that every man is free to do as he pleases. “If a thing is free to be good then it is also free to be bad…Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having” (PG. 5 MENS Devotional Bible – NIV).

That said, nowhere is the imposition of personal wills on other people more apparent than in the lives of individuals with disabilities. More often than not, they live their lives under the constant, overbearing direction of others. Sentiments like, “He has to do what I say because he doesn’t know any better” or “She can’t do that because it’s not good for her” are some of the prevailing comments in opposition to their freedom of choice. Even those of us who work to advocate for the rights of people with disabilities sometimes cross the line and rather than advocating for what the person wants or needs, we try to impose what we think would be best. At the very least, this is an infringement on their individuality, but what strikes me as being most egregious in this manner of thinking is that it perpetuates the notion that people with disabilities don’t have the right to direct their own lives. Ultimately, we do the individuals and society as a whole a grave injustice when we stifle individualism and promote dependence through an expectation of blind trust. So what if people falter along the way? Don’t we all?

In the end, every person has both the right and the responsibility to choose his own path. To the political party loyalists, “Emancipate thyself from mental slavery” and allow yourself to consider what others have to offer. To people in general, Live Life Well.

The month of May is being proclaimed as National Mental Health Awareness Month. For more information, on mental health issues, and/or the general rights of individuals with disabilities, please contact NMPASI at (670) 235-7273/4 [voice] / 235-7278 [tty] / 235-7275 [fax] or on-line at www.nmpasi.com.