As a young child, I always wanted to be bigger, older and wiser. I dreamed of being in high school, or being a perfect well dressed secretary working in an office. Yet they say time flies when you’re having fun, but it seems now that I yearn for those times again, those boundaries and limitations. Freedom is daunting; the world is big and dangerous and I often find myself wishing I was young again. For me, the liberty I do have only brings more questions and confusion into my life. The world doesn’t seem too exciting. As I am now so used to the idea of being ‘free’, in the sense of being able to choose what road I choose, when given boundaries sometimes i react by getting irritated and angry. I am not alone with these sentiments. We all oppose restrictions in different areas in our life. While physical and idealistic imprisonment can push us towards revolt, it is in our reaction to these fetters which dictates how such conflicts resolve.
Restrictions on our rights and freedoms can push us to revolt. It is in these denials of our sense of freedom, not rather the method by which we are deprived, which we are so against; as a threat to deny our ability to do what we want, is often construed as a direct reduction of ourselves. It is in this; between our perception of future opportunities that the Catholic Church in Brecht’s The Life Of Galileo is so against. As for the church, the widespread acceptance of the Ptolemaic model is representative of their own influence. As such Brecht’s point transcends the historical example of the church’s restrictions, into a broader articulation of how we, in general revolt to perceived idealistic restrictions; not because of tangible detriment per se, but because we bundle our self image with our sense of freedoms. Although Galileo recanted; once knowledge has been shared, it is impossible to return to the uninformed past. Hence the Ptolemaic system forced