Never before, at least in the known history available to us, has anything like this circus, that we are currently experiencing, happened. It doesn’t seems scary, it’s not war. It's not painful, except it hurts common sense from looking at screens or walls, or the same people every day. In effect, most of us feel good or fat.

But the changes are big and will have permanent consequences.

The word quarantine comes from the Italian language, the root of the word quaranta-40, a number that indicates how many days ships during the plague had to wait in front of Venice to enter its port. If I remember correctly, the collective closure of all public and private institutions and companies began around March 10. I don't know the exact date, but I know that I should have "returned to my mother in Bosnia" then, because March 13 is her birthday. I did not succeed in that intention, because the borders in my country were closed very fast.

Everyone has lost something in quarantine, some a job, financial security, others a housing issue, others a nerve, and some relatives, some all of the above. However, despite all these problems and tragedies, we lost something bigger, we all lost our freedom, indefinitely.

As freedom is an idea, which has a million definitions and we experience each of them subjectively, the wikipedia explanation, wich explains freedom as a possibility of independent action is enough for me to write this text. Still an abstract idea that we have never been close to.

All of us (at least in the West) think that we have the right to freedom, that we are free by birth, but that freedom is in fact so small and most often related to decisions that will not significantly change our lives or bring meaning to our lives.

So if we don't already have freedom, then why is it now extremely endangered?

Freedom of movement is such an obvious freedom, but it is not complete either. Although due to the internet and current world media coverage we think we are part of a global village, we are not free to travel through that village, we have been robbed by the system, finances have robbed us and ultimately passports, visas and state borders. But at least we are free in our states? Not.

In your city? Not.

In your street? Not.

In your apartment? Yes, if we are not victims of domestic violence.

We are reduced to cells in the zoo, and we are all an attraction on its own.

How did we become detainees? Supposedly by our own decision. But I can’t completely blame all of us, ordinary, those who are ruled, because I see that our free will is not as free as every decision made by it is predictable and shaped by the system that raised us to become such as we are. Uneducated, disinterested and selfish.

We did not know the difference between viruses and flu, we did not know the basics of biology, we were not interested in what was happening in the world, in our health systems, the only thing that mattered to us was to bark on social networks and freely spread conspiracy theories.

But never to act, never to make decisions, especially not about our lives.

And when the decision was made not to go anywhere, almost not even to the window, we accepted it because we couldn't do anything else, did we?

I am not criticizing quarantine, it is a way to suppress the spread of the virus, I criticize human passivity.

We must remember ancient times and the freedom as Aristotle saw it. To be a citizen, to act, to bring something new to the world for the benefit of all. We don't have to be politicians to participate, it is enough to be citizens.

We convinced everyone "above" ( call them now capitalists, conglomerates or lizard people) that they can let us go and put us back in the cage as they please, and when we are bored, let us go to the shops to buy. Not much different from a hamster spinning on a wheel, we spin between shelves with countless supposedly essential items.

In essence, the "lizards" already assumed that, but now they know.

We have convinced them that we do not need evidence, we do not need a discussion nor do we want anyone to ask us anything. We like to hear each other and be loud, but we don't like to make decisions. We have proven that fear is enough to completely change our lives from the bottom up. We have proved to them that they never really need our permission again, if they scare us enough.

Whether I think quarantine is effective or not is another matter. To be clear I am not against quarantine.

My mother has more than 50 years and she is a chronic patient and yet she still appeared at work every day as a responsible nurse. Because of the risk, they decided that she does’t have to come to work until the epidemic passes. Let her be quarantined as well. I think it's okay, the decision was made on the facts, for the benefit of all.

I am against the enactment of laws that threaten basic human freedoms, without any scientific basis and any reasons based on facts.

U mom gradu se otvaraju kladionice, ali ja ne mogu da uđem u državu. 

Bookmakers are opening in my city, but I can't enter the country.

Although on all sides something can undermine my faith and fragile positive attitude, I can't move anywhere in this game except for one or two steps, day by day, trying to make a profit from what has been given to me by practicing thus my one-way pawn freedom. Only, there are a lot of pawns on the board, and when they would come to their senses, remember, together they would be significant.

Lana Soldat, student of Faculty of Mathematics, Koper, Slovenia