An Interview With the Lizard King

Graham: I think fans of The Doors see you as a savior, the leader who'll set them all free. How do you feel about that? It's kind of a heavy burden, isn't it?

Jim Morrison: It's absurd. How can I set free anyone who doesn't have the guts to stand up alone and declare his own freedom? I think it's a lie. People claim they want to be free, everybody insists that freedom is what they want the most, the most sacred and precious thing a man can possess. But that's bullshit! People are terrified to be set free, they hold on to their chains. They fight anyone who tries to break those chains. It's their security....How can they expect me or anyone to set them free if they don't really want to be free?

Graham: Why do you think people fear freedom?

Jim Morrison: I think people resist freedom because they're afraid of the unknown. But it's ironic. That unknown was once very well known. It's where our souls belong. The only solution is to confront them, confront yourself with the greatest fear imaginable. Expose yourself to your deepest fear. After that, fear has no power, and fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.

Graham: What do you mean when you say "freedom"?

Jim Morrison: There are different kinds of freedom, and there's a lot of misunderstanding. The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your senses for an act. You give up your ability to feel and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first. You can take away a man's political freedom and you won't hurt him, unless you take away his freedom to feel. That can destroy him.

Graham: But how can anyone else have the power to take away from your freedom to feel?

Jim Morrison: Some people surrender their freedom willingly, but others are forced to surrender it. Imprisonment begins with birth. Society, parents; they refuse to allow you to keep the freedom you are born with. There are subtle ways to punish a person for daring to feel. You see that everyone around you has destroyed his true feeling nature. You imitate what you see.

Graham: In some of your poetry, you openly admire and praise primitive people, Indians, for instance. Do you mean that it's not human beings in general but our particular society that's flawed and destructive?

Jim Morrison: Look at how other cultures live, peacefully, in harmony with the earth, the forest, and animals. They don't build war machines and invest millions of dollars in attacking other countries whose political ideals don't happen to agree with their own. They all learn to live together.