With freedom from fear and wondering where your next meal was coming from or how many mouths you’d have to feed next year and whether you’d get sacked by your employer or thrown into jail for some minor indiscretion – with freedom from all that came choice, and you could choose a nice quiet, calm, peaceful, ordinary life and die with your nightshirt on and impatient relatives making lots of noise around you . . . Or you could end up doing something like this, and – however scared your body might feel – your brain rather appreciated the experience.
