So this morning I turn on my laptop in order to install the MobileSync CD that came with my new LG Shine Cell, but as that’s running in the background I decide to checkout a newly configured image gallery on a proto type website I’m developing for a client. This client does dive tours around Panama, so they had quite a few underwater shots. As I get lost in the shots I start to think about how “We” (humans) throughout time have developed different means or technologies to get away from our “normal” dwellings or environment; whether we decide to become one with the fish, or one with the birds, or any other leisure pursuit that brings about a feeling of being free or liberated from the burdens of our artificial habitat. Neither a Zen nor innovative thought by the way, but it was my morning thought.

My Shine is loaded with some Nina Simone and a couple other hip hop pieces that I might not even queue up, but better safe than sorry. Seven minutes after pulling out of the house “Nina Simone – Feeling Good” starts playing and it takes my early morning thought to unexplainable levels of infinity.

Fish in the sea you know how I feel
River running free you know how I feel
Blossom in the tree you know how I feel
…
Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean, don’t you know
Butterflies all having fun you know what I mean
…
Stars when you shine you know how I feel
Scent of the pine you know how I feel

All of a sudden this becomes the best song in the world. I’m not only “Feeling Good”, I’m also “Feeling Free”.

Not the kind of freedom usually attribute after the culmination of a master<->slave relationship. This is “True” freedom; flying freedom, swimming freedom, running freedom, blossoming freedom. This is freedom without caring. Nina personifies and forces immediate memory access to expressions of freedom throughout nature. All of a sudden I find myself driving way above the speed limit and screaming, a Jazz song, at the top of my lungs:

Oh freedom is mine
And I know how I feel

And at the end of it all:

Sleep in peace when day is done
That’s what I mean

No other song is played as this is repeated 10 or 15 times

---