——一位自由世界的过来人，回望大洋国。

文 / HuSir

　　我曾生活在一个自由世界。那里的制度并不完美，社会并不和谐，政治也并不高尚。权力会犯错，人会彼此撕裂，公共讨论常常充满冲突与失序。但有一件事，在我离开之后反而变得异常清晰：自由从来不是一种被赐予的状态，而是一种被不断承担的能力。

　　回望大洋国，许多人并不缺少关于自由的信息。真相不再完全被遮蔽，社交媒体让越来越多的人看见谎言、愤怒于不公，表达也变得前所未有地密集。表面上看，一切似乎都在“觉醒”之中，仿佛只差一个契机，历史就会翻页。然而，正是在这种高密度的信息与情绪之下，我看到了一种更深的困境——并非自由缺席，而是人尚未准备好。

　　准备好什么？准备好承担代价，准备好面对失败，准备好在没有英雄、没有捷径、没有外部拯救的情况下，为自己的选择负责，去选择承担属于自己的那份责任。自由世界真正教会我的，并不是如何批评权力，而是如何在没有人替你兜底的情况下，仍然不把责任推给他人。正是这一点，让我在离开之后第一次真正意识到：大洋国所面临的，并不仅仅是制度问题，更是人的问题。

　　在大洋国，人们习惯于等待，而不是承担自己的责任。更多的是等待明君，等待清官，等待良心发现；等待统治者变好，等待国际社会出手，等待“形势变化”。这种等待并非源于懒惰，而是源于一种被长期塑造的心理结构——把历史当作一场由“他人主演”的戏，而自己只是观众。这种结构带来的直接后果，是对“外部拯救”的执念。一旦某个强权国家发表强硬言论，一旦某位政治人物释放暧昧信号，情绪便迅速被点燃；而当现实并未按预期发展，失望与绝望随之而来。波斯国的悲剧如此，旁观其后的大洋国人，也同样在失望中看见了自己的影子。

　　但问题恰恰在这里：任何一个自由社会的形成，从来不是被“拯救”的结果，而是被“承担”的结果。没有一个民族，是靠他人的出兵、施压或施舍，完成了自由的转变。外部力量最多只能影响节奏，却无法替代一个社会完成觉醒、组织、试错、失败与重建。回顾那些今日被视为“自由国家”的历史，很容易被简化成制度进步、思想启蒙或英雄叙事。但如果把镜头拉近，自由的诞生往往伴随着极其具体、甚至令人不适的痛苦。在英国，普通人为了限制王权，经历了数百年的内战、清洗、宗教迫害与政治报复；在法国，自由并非始于《人权宣言》，而是从恐怖统治、内斗与一次次革命失败中艰难爬出；在美国，“自由的灯塔”建立在独立战争的流血之上，也建立在长期的内战、种族撕裂与制度性不公的反复纠错之中；在东欧，摆脱极权并非一夜之间完成，而是伴随着经济崩溃、失业、代际撕裂与漫长阵痛。这些社会并非因为更“高尚”而获得自由，而是因为在一次次失败中，越来越多的人学会了承担失败的后果，而不是把责任再次外包给新的权威。自由从来不是一个干净的起点，而是一条被血、错误与悔改反复浸透的道路。

　　大洋国的另一个深层问题，在于人们对自由的理解，长期停留在“结果层面”，而非“过程层面”。人们渴望投票权、言论权、尊严与保障，却极度厌恶与之配套的东西——组织、规则、协商、妥协、长期的不确定性，以及一次次可能失败的尝试。在自由社会，个人必须为自己的选择承担后果；在大洋国，许多人希望拥有自由的果实，却不愿经历自由的劳动，换句话说是担心自己承担责任后的结果与理想不符。

　　更复杂的是，人们对谎言的态度，往往呈现出一种矛盾状态：既愤怒，又依赖。一方面，人们嘲讽宣传，厌恶口号，讥讽宏大叙事；另一方面，在心理深处，却仍渴望一个无需自己判断的“统一答案”。当旧权威崩塌，而新的责任尚未被接纳，焦虑便会迅速蔓延。

　　近些年，越来越多的大洋国人选择离开这片土地，移民到自由世界的国家。这种选择本身并不值得指责，甚至在许多情况下，是理性而必要的逃离。制度的压迫、未来的不确定性、对子女命运的焦虑，足以成为离开的理由。但一个常被忽略的事实是：地理位置的改变，并不必然意味着心理结构的改变。如果一个人心中从未真正生出自由的种子，即便身处自由世界，也可能只是把大洋国的统治逻辑随身携带，成为一种“远程的被统治者”。他们也许享受着自由制度所带来的安全与便利，却依然在思维上依赖权威、在判断上等待指令、在公共事务上选择回避、在风险面前迅速退缩。对权力的恐惧、对责任的逃避、对冲突的厌恶，并不会因为换了一本护照而自动消失。

　　自由世界并不会替任何人完成内在的更新。相反，它会毫不留情地放大一个人的真实状态——对准备好的人，自由是展开；对尚未准备好的人，自由反而是一种压力。社交媒体确实让许多人“看见了”。但看见，并不等于准备好。如果自由的种子没有在每个人心里生根，而只是停留在信息、情绪与转发之中，那么最终，它只会成为另一种可以被收割的资源。

　　回望两千多年的历史，大洋国一次次的失望，并非偶然。改朝换代可以很快，但人的心理结构却极其顽固。只要“被统治者心态”不被打破，只要人们仍然习惯把命运外包，任何新的秩序，最终都会回到旧的循环之中。这并不是对大洋国人民的指责，而是一个过来人的冷静判断。我并不认为大洋国的人“配不上自由”，但我越来越确信：自由从来不是自动到来的，它只会出现在那些已经准备好承担它的人身上。

　　真正的问题，从来不是“有没有机会”，而是——当机会出现时，有多少人愿意付出代价，而不是继续等待下一次更安全的可能。或许，这正是当下最令人不安、却也最诚实的结论：自由不是缺席，而是人尚未准备好去担责。这句话并不鼓舞人心，却也并非绝望。它只是提醒我们，真正的转变，从来不是从街头的壮烈开始，而是从大量普通人，在各自的生活中，停止幻想捷径、停止等待拯救、开始承担选择的那一刻，悄然发生。这条路很慢，也很孤独。但这是唯一不会再以“失望”收场的路。

Freedom Is Not Absent—People Are Not Yet Ready

A Reflection on Oceania from a Sojourner of the Free World
By HuSir

I once lived in the free world. Its institutions were far from perfect, its society far from harmonious, and its politics far from noble. Power made mistakes, people turned against one another, and public discourse was often filled with conflict and disorder. Yet after leaving, one truth became strikingly clear to me: freedom is never a condition that is bestowed—it is a capacity that must be continuously borne.

Looking back at Oceania, many people do not lack information about freedom. Truth is no longer entirely concealed. Social media allows more and more people to see lies, feel anger at injustice, and express themselves with unprecedented intensity. On the surface, everything appears to be “awakening,” as if history only awaits a final trigger to turn the page.

And yet, precisely beneath this high-density flood of information and emotion, I see a deeper predicament—not that freedom is absent, but that people are not yet ready.

Ready for what?
Ready to bear costs. Ready to face failure. Ready to take responsibility for one’s own choices in a world without heroes, without shortcuts, and without external saviors—to consciously accept the share of responsibility that belongs to oneself.

What the free world truly taught me was not how to criticize power, but how not to shift responsibility onto others when no one is there to catch you. It was this realization that made me understand, after leaving, that Oceania’s predicament is not merely institutional—it is profoundly human.

In Oceania, people are accustomed to waiting rather than assuming responsibility.
They wait for enlightened rulers, upright officials, and moral awakenings;
they wait for authorities to improve, for the international community to intervene, for “the situation to change.”

This waiting is not born of laziness, but of a deeply conditioned psychological structure—one that treats history as a drama performed by others, while the self remains a spectator. The immediate consequence of this structure is an obsession with external salvation. Whenever a powerful country issues a strong statement, or a political figure releases an ambiguous signal, emotions are quickly ignited. When reality fails to follow expectations, disappointment and despair inevitably follow. This is true of the tragedy in Persia—and of the people of Oceania who watch from afar and recognize their own reflection in that disappointment.

Yet herein lies the core issue: no free society has ever come into being through “rescue.” Freedom is achieved through bearing responsibility. No nation has transitioned into freedom through foreign intervention, pressure, or charity. External forces may influence the pace, but they cannot replace a society’s own process of awakening, organizing, trial and error, failure, and reconstruction.

When we look back at countries now regarded as “free,” history is often simplified into narratives of institutional progress, enlightenment, or heroic leadership. But a closer lens reveals that freedom’s birth was accompanied by concrete and often unsettling suffering.

In Britain, ordinary people endured centuries of civil war, purges, religious persecution, and political retaliation to restrain royal power.
In France, freedom did not begin with the Declaration of the Rights of Man, but emerged painfully from terror, internal conflict, and repeated revolutionary failures.
In the United States, the so-called “beacon of freedom” was forged not only through the bloodshed of independence, but also through a prolonged civil war, racial divisions, and repeated efforts to correct systemic injustice.
In Eastern Europe, liberation from totalitarianism was not achieved overnight, but came with economic collapse, mass unemployment, generational fractures, and prolonged social pain.

These societies did not gain freedom because they were more “virtuous,” but because, through repeated failures, increasing numbers of people learned to bear the consequences of failure rather than outsourcing responsibility to new authorities. Freedom was never a clean starting point—it was a path repeatedly soaked in blood, error, and repentance.

Another deep-seated problem in Oceania lies in how freedom is understood. It is often viewed at the level of outcomes rather than process. People long for voting rights, freedom of expression, dignity, and security, yet strongly resist the elements that accompany them—organization, rules, negotiation, compromise, prolonged uncertainty, and repeated attempts that may fail.

In free societies, individuals must bear the consequences of their choices.
In Oceania, many desire the fruits of freedom but shrink from the labor of freedom—fearing that the results of responsibility may not align with their ideals.

More complex still is the public’s relationship with falsehood: it is both angry and dependent. On the surface, propaganda is mocked, slogans despised, and grand narratives ridiculed. Yet deep down, many still yearn for a “unified answer” that requires no personal judgment. When old authorities collapse and new responsibilities are not yet accepted, anxiety spreads rapidly.

In recent years, increasing numbers of people from Oceania have chosen to leave, immigrating to countries of the free world. This choice itself is not blameworthy and is often rational and necessary. Institutional repression, uncertainty about the future, and anxiety over children’s prospects are sufficient reasons to depart.

But a frequently overlooked fact remains: a change in geography does not necessarily entail a change in psychological structure.
If the seed of freedom has never truly taken root within, one may still carry Oceania’s logic of domination abroad, becoming a “remote subject” of the same mentality.

Such individuals may enjoy the safety and convenience provided by free institutions, yet continue to rely on authority in their thinking, wait for instructions in judgment, avoid public responsibility, and retreat quickly in the face of risk. Fear of power, evasion of responsibility, and aversion to conflict do not vanish with a new passport.

The free world will not complete anyone’s inner transformation. On the contrary, it mercilessly amplifies one’s true condition.
For those who are ready, freedom is expansion.
For those who are not, freedom becomes pressure.

Social media has indeed allowed many to “see.”
But seeing is not the same as being ready.
If the seed of freedom does not take root in individual hearts, remaining instead at the level of information, emotion, and reposting, it will ultimately become just another resource to be harvested.

Looking back over two thousand years, Oceania’s repeated disappointments are no accident. Dynastic change may occur swiftly, but psychological structures are remarkably resilient. As long as the mentality of being ruled remains unbroken—so long as people habitually outsource destiny—any new order will eventually fall back into the old cycle.

This is not an indictment of the people of Oceania, but a sober judgment from one who has lived elsewhere. I do not believe that Oceanians are “unworthy” of freedom. Yet I am increasingly convinced that freedom is never automatic—it appears only where people are prepared to bear it.

The real question is not whether opportunity exists, but how many are willing to pay the price when opportunity arrives, rather than waiting for a safer alternative.

Perhaps this is the most unsettling—and the most honest—conclusion of our time:
freedom is not absent; people are not yet ready to bear responsibility.

This conclusion is not inspiring, but neither is it despairing.
It simply reminds us that genuine transformation does not begin with heroic spectacles in the streets, but quietly emerges when large numbers of ordinary people, in their daily lives, stop fantasizing about shortcuts, stop waiting for salvation, and begin to take responsibility for their own choices.

This path is slow and lonely.
But it is the only path that will not end, once again, in disappointment.