Man is in prison. If he has a chance to escape, then he must begin by realizing that he is in prison. Until he has reached this point, he cannot even begin. Then arises the question: how to escape?
George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff
L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers. (Man is born free, but everywhere lies in chains).
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I can recall watching many moons ago the wonderful film Papillon with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman imprisoned on the French Penal Colony of Devil's Island. At the end, just before McQueen jumps from the high cliffs into the raging sea and onto his raft of coconuts, he tells Hoffman's character who has decided to stay behind and tend his garden that he has counted the waves and that it's the seventh wave that will take him out beyond the reach of the swell that would force him onto the rocks, and to his death.
The Seventh Perch just above Eaglesham, where the eagles (and the butterflies) fly...
My raft of coconuts, with three curious horses... wondering how they too can make their escape.
At the end of the film, the epilogue reveals that Pappy was successful in his escape attempt:
Papillon made it to freedom
and for the remaining years of his life
he lived a free man.
The message is clear then: Unchain your Self, get your raft together, chuck it in to the sea...
and start paddling and pedaling...
