Does Our Own Psyche Enslave Us?
For @sagescrub's second challenge he has posed the question “What is holding you back from feeling more free?” This has been proving even more challenging to answer than I first thought!
Somebody once wrote that to be free in this society you need to be incredibly rich or pretty much a nomad or hermit with nothing. For most people both of these things are actually quite hard to achieve. It would be easier to just be able to opt out and choose not to pay taxes and in return not to receive any of the benefits, but that isn't an option.
So why lots of money? I guess with enough money you have the ability to go where you please and do what you please and if you run into problems you can pay for them to go away. Then on the other extreme all you really need to worry about is taking care of yourself. If you own nothing, then you have to pay nothing which means you don't need to be tied to a job and pay your fealty to government. However, even this is getting harder as more restrictions come into place to try and stop people from foraging and hunting.
Everything in this system chains us to it, limiting our choices and freedom. If you want a roof over your head you pay rent, taxes and/or mortgage, which means you have to work to earn the money to pay for it. You'll probably need a car to get to that place of work and that will cost you in fuel, road tax and insurance, but better yet you'll have lots of rules to follow while you're ‘driving' and if you're caught accidentally breaking those rules you'll have more costs in the way of fines. If you end up without work, then you'll have to beg government for some money to try and live, because there are way to many rules and restrictions in place for you to fend for yourself.
So there are a lot of things in place in our system that restrict our freedom, but how much of that comes from a belief that we have to live this way, because that's the way it's done? Do we just live this way because we don't know how else to live and are afraid of letting go of our things and our known way of life? I'm starting to think that my own mind and my own fear might be what's really holding me back from feeling more free. I'm afraid to let go of what we have, but at the back of my mind I also know that people have survived for millennia without all this.
It is sad that the world has become the trap it is. You are taught at school how to be a good little wage slave for the benefit of a few, and convinced it is for your own benefit and it is the way of things. What gives the government the legitimacy to dole out land for cost, to dictate who can do what, and who can't and what, is a social contract to care for the interests of their citizens, but when the contract is being broken, and the government is serving the interests of the few, not the many, then the many really need to rethink the contract.
We are by nature community oriented and as such follow the flock in what we think is right for us all. This makes us easily manipulated, especially if the indoctrination starts at an early age.
Yes, and that is why daycare is so evil for babies. They should be getting one on one loving from a family, not just being dumped into a room of many children and left.
It is our very nature that means we do not require all the laws we have dumped on us. We want to do what is of benefit for the community because it is instinctive to do so, or else the community will not thrive, and the individual will not reap the benefits of the strong community.
I think life is mix of regrets, happiness and feeling of being caged. I live in a country where there is lot of restriction on even using internet. My husband works in embassy in that country, so we can't even do the social media and remain anonymous for that reason. And then when I come out of it to visit another country I get to see more freedom of one kind and limits of another. I think there is never a true freedom. There's only box of things that holds us back. :)
Rydhi
xox
I think you're right, there is never true freedom while others inflict their rules upon one another. Even without that, though, we will make our own restrictions in life, for the good of our family or community, but at least these are restrictions of our own choosing.
Such nice write up for the contest. It really is a struggle to mentally free yourself of the societal restrains. I am with you on this, I know that for a very very long time people had been surviving without the rules and regulations we put on ourselves today.
I believe there is a balance that can be found between today's and yesterday's way of life. It looks like more and more people are leaving the big cities to homestead, farmstead or live in more natural abundance, and that is where the balance will be. I don't know if that makes sense, I guess I am trying to say that we can fight back through our own self reliance and the community that surrounds thus very thought.
Thanks for sharing
Yes, that makes complete sense. I would very much like to go to the country, but stepping away from what we have known all our lives is the scary part, plus not knowing whether we could manage.
I'm sure it is... and I will know this very soon. We are moving out of New York City onto a property in June to build a homestead but I will keep one tie to everything we've known, my work on a part time basis to keep insurance...
I'm already scared!
@minismallholding thank you for joining the #FreedomChallenge!
I feel you on this. I am often thinking about the possibilities of being rich or owning nothing. Some days I want one, some days the other. Neither are perfect or realistic for me - although both are possible. I wonder if this problem has been around as long as money has been around? Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this dilemma of the realities we face. It's good to know that there are more of us in this together!
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