Vladimir Yeremenko: “Happiness means just being free…”.
Most people want to be happy. I would even say all of us want to be happy. Happiness is way more important than money, health and sex.
People are conscious of what happiness is. For most people it’s joy, for others – positive emotions, absence of fears, anxiety, depression. As for the scientists, for them the synonym of happiness is “subjective well-being”, which is not the same for all people.
Happiness depends on objective conditions and on how a person sees the world.
There is a link between happiness and freedom. Depriving a man of his personal, political or economic freedom will considerably decrease his level of satisfaction with life. And freedom, on the other hand, makes a man happy when he can use it properly. As studies show, in the countries with badly-developed democratic institutes and lower level of life, where the declared freedoms cannot always be so easily used, the level of happiness is also way lower. One of such countries is Belorussia.
Happiness, according to a renowned scientist Argyll, is a great wealth of the society. And it’s not personal business of each citizen. How can you make the whole country happy? – it’s an important question for each civilized country, for country leader and the government whose actions must be directed not at oppression of freedoms but at creating happier people in their country.
Imprisonment of a person, according to many, is a source of unhappiness. His loss of freedom affects all aspects of happiness: joy, satisfaction, negative emotions.
And still, is it possible for a man, even during long imprisonment, and especially by an unjust conviction, to be happy? What gives him strong positive emotions in prison? Formulas of happiness of the political prisoners after the events of December 19 locked up in prisons and colonies of Belorussia are what this section is focused on. We would like to start off with a letter by Vladimir Yeremenko.
Member of the Youth Front, he was arrested on 20 January 2011 for participation in a protest action against falsified results of Belorussian Presidential elections, and was imprisoned in Volodarsk Jail. On 14 May the court sentence Vladimir to 3 years of colony with a reinforced regime.
June 17, 2011, Volodarsk Jail
Being behind bars, it’s impossible to be happy in a full sense. With the loss of freedom you lose the opportunity to do anything, you lose your purpose of living for you can’t be with your family and loved ones. Even the simplest right and opportunity of being able to go wherever you want and whenever you want to, is taken away from you.
But in spite of that, in captivity I still have more inner freedom. Now I have time to be by myself, to analyze my earlier life, to find mistakes I’ve made. During this time, as weird as it might seem, at this place (jail) I’ve come closer to the Lord. Because of that, I can’t say that I’ve been altogether unhappy.
Of course in jail I’ve had some reasons to rejoice. Jail is really an interesting place. You’d think that behind these dim walls you couldn’t even think of talking about something like joy, but in some weird way you start finding joy in things that you wouldn’t have even noticed before.
I happily receive each letter from the outside world. You can’t express by words what an experience it was to hear my mom’s voice during visits, to see her smile instead of the tears that filled her eyes straight after my sentence. I looked forward to each court hearing because I had a chance to see my friends and relatives. I was grateful, and still am, for each coincidental meeting with the people I know within the walls of Volodarka.
Each minute of my walks is a joy, a joy to take in each gulp of fresh air after the musty, smoke-filled cell. I’m joyful each morning when I hear the birds singing through the window, realizing: I’M ALIVE…
As paradoxical as it may sound life itself makes my life happy. I’m happy when I wake up in the morning and know that I can do something kind and sincere.
True happiness is seeing your family, friends, i.e. those who are close and dear to me, to share joy and concern together. Happiness is just being free…”