From the archive

Freedom

But it's not just black and white: Ukraine has its own problems, but they are defending their country from an aggressor. I am writing all this because war itself violates my main rule in life: "Live and let live." It's a good rule. How does it work in practice? Well, if someone picks on a guy for being gay and beats him up, I'll stand up for him. But I'm not likely to hang out with gay people myself — it's just unpleasant. I have nothing against them, but they are themselves, and I am myself. Interestingly, this does not apply to lesbians — I would socialize with them (perhaps even a lot). In any case, I don't necessarily have to love/subscribe to defend a person's right to be themselves. Freedom is not "doing whatever I want." It is not living according to someone else's lies, not faking your conscience, not serving what you despise. You can be free even in prison — remember Navalny: he was honest with himself to the end and was who he was. There are many other examples: Solzhenitsyn, Brodsky, Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and many, many others.