Burmese Days

September 14, to September -- 2020  Not everyone knows it, but George Orwell was not born in Great Britain.  In fact he was not born "George Orwell";  his real name was Eric Blair.  He was born in an expatriate community and returned to England to attend a British boys school (read his essay "Such, Such Were the Joys" when you get a chance).  After leaving school, he returned to the colonies as an imperial policeman.  That experience informs Burmese Days as well as one of his best long essays: Shooting An Elephant.  

It was a stifling, stultifying world in which to live.  It is a world in which every word and every thought is censored.  In England it is hard even to imagine such an atmosphere.  Everyone is free in England;  we sell our souls in public and buy them back in private, among our friends.  But even friendship can hardly exist when every white man is a cog in the wheels of despotism.  Free speech is unthinkable.  All other kinds of freedom are permitted.  You are free to be a drunkard, an idler, a coward, a backbiter, a fornicator;  but you are not free to think for yourself.  Your opinions on every subject of any conceivable importance is dictated for you by the pukka sahibs' code.  

In the end the secrecy of your revolt poisons you like a secret disease.