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<title> The freedom of being who you want to be </title>
According to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights all people are allowed to a free mind. Even though a person's opinions or choice of how to lead his or her life may differ from the general idea, all people should be respected for the choices they make. Some people tend to ignore this fact and feel that their choices in life are more correct and have no hesitation about telling others that they should be better off if following this person's advise. Some people aren't fond of reading or doesn't appreciate art, but they are still individuals and should not be forced into being someone that they are not. The character Miranda in Fowles' book The Collector is one good example of such a person, a wiseacre.

There will always be people who have qualities that others won't approve of. It may be qualities like bragging about money, showing off with a university diploma, being ignorant, selfish or something else. It doesn't matter how people act or what they do, they will always annoy someone or make others jealous, for example. It is easy to tell people what they should do, but what has been a good solution to one person might not be the right choice for another. 

People's lives turn out differently, however. The world is an unfair place to live in and it's a lottery whether a person is born in a rich or in a less wealthy family. The anger and frustration the working class and the underclass sometimes express towards people who are better off, are somewhat motivated but they don't all react in the same way. Some people struggle to make their life better, they study and work hard and some day, hopefully, they reach a point where they are satisfied with their situation. Others "give up" and adopt a bad attitude. Some even figure that since there are rich people in the world they might as well pay for the ones that are not and they find it perfectly fine to let the wealthy people indirectly support them. Miranda expresses in her diary how little she feels for these people - the people that have a "great deadweight of pettiness and selfishness and meanness... And the few have to carry them all." (p. 206). She also expresses her anger for the uneducated people who sneer at and spit on the educated. 

Naturally the world won't change into a better place just because there are people like Fowles' Miranda in it. People like her, who claim that they fight for a better world, a better society with less differences between the rich and the poor, the intellectuals and the working-class, native citizens and immigrants. But in the next moment she claims that she is a part of "the Few" - people who are smart and aware enough of the world and its problems. Miranda claims that she has the solution to most problems. She seems to think that if only more people were like her, the planet would be a better place. But what she doesn't seem to realize is that her superior manner towards for example Clegg doesn't serve her purpose. She recommends a piece of literature to him and when he doesn't feel the same way about it as she does, she gets angry. Even though the situation between Clegg and Miranda is somewhat special, him holding her prisoner and adoring her, she reacts in a very negatively way when he doesn't adopt the ideas in the literature as she was hoping. She hoped that he would realize that something had to be done, and could be done, about the situation he was in. She recommends literature to him that represents ideas that she believes in. When he doesn't want to change, she becomes frustrated. 

What people like Miranda have to realize is that all people are allowed to their opinions. And not depreciate others for having opinions that are different from their own. If people don't want to read books with an ideological message, they don't have to. And people who want to be indifferent and unaware of things that others find important should be able to do so. There are many different things a person can find satisfactory. Just because reading intellectual books apply to one group of people doesn't automatically make the ones who don't find that amusing less intelligent or unable to make own decisions about themselves and their lives. 

In short, instead of telling others how to think and how to lead their lives, we should listen to each other to find out why people act and behave like they do. We don't have to approve with what others do, but the least we can do is to try to understand and treat each other with respect.
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