RE: The Illusion of the Illusion of Freedom
Nature was harsh to us. Nature starved us, infected us with deadly diseases and infections, and destroyed our homes with disasters.
Nature enslaved us, so we built an artificial world; tamed it for the most part. Now the elite controls most of the artificial world, so people point to that as the problem. Still, anyone is free to wonder the wilderness if they want. Unfortunately, most wouldn't last very long.
The root of our enslavement is simply a byproduct of the laws of nature and the harsh realities of this environment. We can never be truly free until we've reached some kind of demigod status where no one person has to depend on anyone else for anything.
Be careful what you wish for though.
This might be a pretty boring and empty existence.
We are of nature, and not by happenstance equipped with an extraordinary ability to adapt to our environment. Perhaps natural disasters, which I wonder how many of them are even natural, destroy our "homes." But in truth they are just buildings. The Earth is our home, and I wager that if we had never began to live inside of buildings then our bodies would be far better adapted to live outdoors.
I think it is we who enslave ourselves by looking upon ourselves as apart from nature, and from one another, and consequently finding ourselves alone and at odds with one another and the world.
As far as deadly diseases, again many of these were introduced by us it seems. But, even if they had all came straight from our environment, I don't see why this is a huge problem. Perhaps death is but a necessary part of the cycle of life. It doesn't have to be looked upon as a punishment. We can choose simply to observe it as the next step in our journey. And if this is the case, then I think a life of running on a hamster wheel to make money to buy things we cannot even take with us on the next part of our journey, is surely far emptier an existence than spending your life overcoming fear, self-doubt and all the other things this world seems hellbent on afflicting us with.
Thanks for your thoughts.