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About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write.
Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground.
![Joy Sweeps [#1514072]
Kiya's gift. I love it!](/main/trans.gif)
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Daily Cascade #1109570 added March 1, 2026 at 3:39pm Restrictions: None
About the High Cost of Liberty
Prompt:
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
Thomas Jefferson
Why do you think vigilance is so difficult in our time and what is really the price of liberty in your opinion?
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The idea that vigilance and liberty go together points to the fact that liberty is, in fact, never secured permanently. I tend to wish that it could be permanent, so we could live our lives in peace. Then, methinks the price of liberty is not vigilance alone. It is responsibility.
To be clear, liberty isn't "doing what we want." It has to do with character and the law.
Yet, it is such a difficult thing! Resisting injustice -before it becomes a normal everyday situation- requires courage, and at times great courage.
After all, liberty has to have our attention first, but paying such attention all the time can be tiring and inconvenient. It also needs our participation. It means sometimes we must dare to stand alone when our principles (of doing and saying the right thing) demand it.
In addition, it needs self-restraint because we have to understand that freedom for one also has its limits...the limits that protect others and their freedoms.
All this is very difficult, not only because we are neglectful, but also, in our time, we are flooded with information, opinions, news, outrage, and many other distractions. Personally speaking, I can't tell half the time if i am being manipulated or if I am being offered the truth. It is exhausting to me to figure out who says what and why.
On top of that, I sometimes feel my voice doesn't matter, as I am sure many others also feel. This is because, in some institutions, we have lost faith.
Then, there is that we-against-them stance, political or otherwise. With this polarization, even good vigilance turns out to be selective.
Also, it is a moral effort to be always on top of things. We need to be our best selves, consistently, not just occasionally.
And that consistency may be the highest cost of all.
Still, from where I stand, the deepest truth points to the value of liberty, at any cost.
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