In the great movie The Shawshank Redemption, Brooks Hatlen, the prison librarian (James Whitmore), is the totally institutionalized man. He’s carved out his safe little niche. He no longer knows how to survive outside the walls — and he realizes he’s unfit for the real world.

Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), on the other hand, is always and emphatically his own man. He is never owned by the prison, even as he’s subject to the prison system’s every whim. No matter what’s done to him, his inner strength holds him steady.

“Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman) stands between them. He’s the guy who’s figured out how to work the prison system so well that he’s probably done better there than he would have outside. He admires Andy, but he’s terrified that he might be more like Brooks.

Andy, as you know if you’ve seen the film, gets hit the hardest. He’s wrongly convicted of murder. His upper-crust background leaves him unprepared for Shawshank’s brutality. His boyish looks make him the target of rape. And even after “the man” begins to appreciate Andy’s talents, he gains very little for himself. In fact, his talents become a liability when the corrupt warden realizes it’s handier to have Andy in prison than out.

Yet through it all Andy is free. Brooks is not. And Red has to make a choice. If Red is ever to get free, it will be because of Andy’s inspiration and helping hand.

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I’ve always talked about how freedom begins with an attitude — with thinking free. Some people just aren’t interested in hearing that because it means they have to shift the blame from other people (their parents, the cops, bureaucrats, Congress) and take charge of their own lives. Others dismiss it as nonsense on pragmatic grounds — because it’s ridiculous to say anyone can be free while stuck in a gulag or living in a police state. Others just think that action is everything and that thinking free is merely a form of idleness.

Even people who understand that you can’t live free unless you think free have a lot of trouble maintaining that belief, day to day.

I have trouble with it, I admit. The daily news — to which I am a junkie — delivers a repeated battering of the bad, scary, and helpless-making. Want to feel totally out of control? Just focus your mind on all the things that Congress, the gnomes of Wall Street, and militarized police forces are doing (or can do, or might do) to you.

How can anybody be free when cops are tasing bedridden grannies or the fedgov is taking over the already government-ridden health care system? How can anybody be free when our best individual efforts — to start a business, to save for the future, to educate our children, to build our own homes, even — are constantly subject to the interference of outside forces? And I really do mean forces — as in “do it our way or else.” As in “we can seize your money at will.” As in “we can take away your kids.” Or “we’ll kill your business and even toss you in prison if you don’t jump through all our unpredictable hoops.”

Even if no cops are battering down your very own personal door at this moment, isn’t it irresponsible to imagine yourself free in a world where so many others suffer oppression? So some would say. Aren’t you just fooling yourself if you call yourself free? Aren’t you just setting yourself up for a huge fall? So some would say.

Yet you know and I know that virtually the only thing that stands between us and the complete triumph of tyranny is our attitude — followed by our actions. We must think free — then act free — according to our own lights, no matter what the rest of the world does. That is literally the only hope for overcoming tyranny.

Whether we can push “the system” to its knees or merely survive as free-minded people (and thus outlive tyranny when it falls under its own weight), thinking free, now and always, gives us our only chance. However small that chance seems at times, we must take it.

For decades, there was very little that Andy Dufresne could do. But what little he could do, he did do — a few overt acts of defiance, but a much longer, invisible, and almost insanely patient effort to break down those prison walls. He couldn’t have done any of it without his dedication to his personal freedom against all odds. He couldn’t have done it without unshakable thoughts followed by coherent actions. He kept his thoughts to himself — but he kept on thinking free.

I expect for some of us the prospect of breaking out of a real, physical prison would be easier to face than the idea of breaking free while surrounded by the power of a militarized surveillance state. After all, busting out of physical walls takes certain easily definable things: a plan, tools, confederates, timing, whatever. You know where you are. You know what you face. You know where you want to end up. Hard as it is, it’s a very concrete project. (Perhaps literally concrete; sorry for the pun.)

Breaking free of something as nebulous as government is harder. But it requires the same fundamental tool: human will. Brooks Hatlen would never be free — even if the authorities opened the gates of the prison and ushered him out. Andy was always free, even when he suffered. Red’s freedom hinged on his willingness to follow Andy’s lead.

Like it or not, it’s our job to be the Andy Dufresnes of this world. It’s not just a matter of our own freedom. We’re the only hope of others who might be inspired by our courage and our innovation to follow us.

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It would be inspiring to hear how some readers of this blog keep up their commitment to their own personal freedom, and the spirit of freedom, when the temptation is strong to sink into hopelessness, futile anger, or depression.

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