‘But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.’ 'In fact,’ said Mustapha Mond, 'you’re claiming the right to be unhappy. Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what might happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.’ There was a long silence. 'I claim them all,’ the Savage said at last.
Huxley, Brave New World
This book changed my life. These last paragraphs in particular. I read it in high school (the only public place I was allowed to spend time unwatched). It helped me to realize I’d rather experience all that is in life, the unknown, with its fear and instability, than be trapped within the 4 (’safe’ and known) walls of hell. Instead of looking out the window and wishing to join the world, one day I finally managed to join it. You don’t know it when you’ve always had it, but I can tell you (as can Jaycee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart), freedom is everything, freedom and independence, and the ability to exert your own will. My life is my own; I’m free to make all of my own mistakes. I claim them all.
