Personal Freedom - do we even know what it is?
Browsing Steemit today, I came across this contest question by @freedomtribe -- What's the one thing you have lost - or would be afraid to lose - which would limit (or has already limited) your personal Freedom? This very much fits the theme of my blog here, so here we go.
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I don't have personal freedom.
To clarify, I don't have personal freedom in a sense of the world how I understand it. Moreover, I believe that most people in the world don't have it either. Upon reading this many will disagree or say that my personal opinion has nothing to do with their reality. I don't mind. I am not trying to discredit anyone; this is definitely my own view on things.
Why is my view so "gloomy", then? Well, it's not exactly gloomy. To me, it's just how things are, and each of us has a choice to leave it as it is, or to work on changing it.
To explain a little, I will ask some questions.
- Are you free if your life is subjected to patterns and schedules which you haven't consciously developed for yourself, but which have been created for you by your parents, your school system, your job, your social surroundings, your religion, or even your own body with its physical limitations, cravings for foods and sex, and need for sleep?
- Are you free if most of your thought processes, opinions, and beliefs are formed or influenced by the way you were raised, by the books you've read, by the films you've seen, by the people you trust, and by a million other aspects of social life that had been there before you were born and will remain there for years and years after you die?
- Are you free if your feelings of happiness, pain, sorrow, pleasure, or anger heavily depend on the hormones your body produces and on other processes in your biological organism that you cannot control with your own willpower and mind?
- Are you free if your habits and addictions, no matter how small they are, affect your mood?
- Are you free if you want to climb that mountain, for example, but your body isn't strong enough and just won't be able to complete the task?
- Are you free if you need a house to feel happy and safe when you sleep at night?
- Are you free if you have no control over your dreams when you sleep?
- Are you free if you can't survive more than two days in the wild if you happen to end up there with no warm clothes, no electronic gadgets, no food, no weapons, and no hope to be found?
This list can go on forever, but I'll stop here.
My answer to these questions is NO.
I am yet to find my PERSONAL FREEDOM.
I believe that true freedom is not something we all possess just because of the fact that we exist in this world. I think that it is something to be earned by hard work (and I don't mean work we do for money). It's more complex and difficult that just forming your own opinions about the world. It's deeper than being emotionally free from other people affecting your mood. It's more challenging than quitting alcohol and cigarettes (or at least cravings for them that are out of control)...
To me, personal freedom of a human being is something that most of us don't understand yet. It involves all aspects of human being - physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, etc., and it's not as simple as just "enjoying life". In fact, most well-known ideas and concepts about "freedom" that exist in our world are formed by a variety of influences on our thinking processes. Do we really know where they come from?
Ah, so sorry to hear of these limitations on your freedoms. I find it hard to conceptualize the idea that we are ONLY prisoners in our own minds and bodies..that we manifest our own reality.... I get it philosoohically, but when you have so many physical barriers to your freedom it's hard to FEEL free, isn't it?
My students always argue we live in a free country. It's all I can to to stop myself ranting at them that they aren't free at all!
A great response.
Posted using Partiko Android
Thanks! I am looking for the way to change it, and it’s a big, bad battle.
To me, the idea that we are “free in our minds” is something very tricky. I am suspicious about it. On one hand, I agree with it and that everything is in the mind... But then, look at this - if I am free in my mind while physically sitting in a prison cell, what is my freedom in practice, in this material world in this material body? I cannot apply it. I cannot act on it. I can only keep bragging to everyone how I’m free in my own head... But how real is that?
I think Charles Manson was big on this idea... sitting behind bars... “I am more free on here than all of you out there” - something like that he said. Well, Mr. Manson, you may be right because many people are trapped by a multitude of things that rule them while giving only the illusion of freedom... but you, no matter how free you are in your mind, cannot physically use it, so you are not free either.
Who knows... I’m on a quest to find out more. And tell others if I can. No, SHOW others... because telling without showing is usually taken as preaching :/
They are all valid questions and reasoning and they have set my mind off whirling, but at the same time, I think maybe it is an individual thing and we are all different, yet all the same.
Yes, I think it’s definitely both
Woman, I love you! You came here and hit all the right buttons in just a few weeks! No idea how you're doing it but I feel drawn to it. You used some German word lately. Can't remember what it was. So, I have to ask: Are you here, in Germany? And if so, where???
I wrote a post recently about Sehnsucht and how I understand the word ) No, I am not in Germany, but I hope to come and visit one day! I am learning some German in my spare time. And I am originally from Eastern Europe and Russia, but I reside in California for the time being...
Thanks a lot, I’m glad to hear that my thoughts resonate ... (the world feels as a less lonely place like that I guess?)
Yes, I already found and commented on it. I can't believe you said 'California'! It's where I want to go for two years now. A few days ago, my daughter said she would be joining me, the same day a friend of mine said, he's gonna move to Cali and now you … Too many signs to ignore! I guess we'll be working out together next year! :)
Great!) Never ignore the signs and little hints, I believe they are all for a reason
You would be the person I'd be out in the woods with establishing bases n living off the land with. Keep going
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