Freedom Is Overrated
Just imagine you have an hour of free time. What would you do with it? What will you do when all of your responsibilities disappear? What will you do when there is nothing left to achieve? What will you do when everything you do means nothing to you? Can you smell that? It's freedom.
Should I eat the cake and feel fat or should I suffer and feel lighter?
A Taste Of Freedom
In that hour of free time, if something goes wrong, who should we blame? We could blame the government if the government is responsible. We could blame another person if they do something. But if we make the choice and no one else's choice affects us then we are responsible. Freedom is the ability to make decisions and perform actions outside of the coercion of these interfering objects. In that hour, we could do anything, create any future, derive any meaning, pursue any passion, imagine any dream.
But why do we spend that hour so often do things we don't particularly enjoy doing. Why do we feel guilt we when do something we enjoy but decide against from some other reason? We have the freedom. Why is it so easy to feel so uneasy about it? Where do you want to eat? I don't care. Maybe you do care, but you don't want to say. Maybe you'll be judged. But nothing bad is coming to you unless you take it or you don't. That's freedom for you. You have 57 minutes left and you could continue to waste your time reading this post or you could do something.
You Dream of Freedom, But Don't Utilize It
Some people dream of fast cars. Some people dream of traveling the world. Some people dream of being rich. All of these things are desires of freedom. A fast car will improve your social status. Traveling the world will help you meet new people and experience new things. Being rich means you can choose to work. All of these things add to the possibilities. But the possibilities are overrated. Who knows. Maybe if you actually had to choose you would still choose to binge that new season on Netflix. Then you would hate yourself for all of that time you wasted.
But you already have the freedom to have all of those things. You could travel but you make excuses. You could buy a fast car. Probably have to cut your other expenses, but still possible. You could be rich. You just really aren't trying to be rich. Because the process isn't very appealing. There is nothing wrong for craving freedom, but we all already pretty free. And yet we choose to act if we aren't quite there yet.
There Is No Cage
People claim they have imaginary chains holding them back. I have to spend money on a new television because my old television is a piece of garbage and no one wants to hang at my place. I have to mow the front yard because everyone's front yard is mowed. I need to work hard at a job I don't really like because being jobless for a moment makes me feel insignificant. I don't have any free time because I pursue these things I really shouldn't pursue but I do because I should pursue them. But these chains are really comfort blankets.
We are actually are really free, but we don't want to be free. We have complete control over our life, but we don't want complete control. We need obligations to feel important when they make us feel burdened. But there are no obligations. You can wake up tomorrow and do anything you want to do. You have fifty four minutes left. But you don't. You have years, decades. And you let your precious time slip away. But you are free to do that. Maybe I'm confused. Maybe I'm wasting both of our times. Who knows anymore?
Sources:
Cake Image
Interesting reading!
Just imagine you have an hour of free time. What would you do with it?
Even the first sentence of your article shows the relativity and the well hidden illusions behind various everyday words. There is not really such a thing as 'free time', as if the rest of it was in prison for first degree murder. We perceive it as 'free time' based on our everyday schedules, routines and habits. At any given moment you can consciously choose to quit what you are doing and simply do whatever you want.
The thing is that you also need to accept the consequences of your conscious choice. I think that the majority of the people havent realized they can really do anything they want. But that doesnt mean its necessarily positive for the society. A man can choose to break the law and steal an apple from a grocery store because in his mindset he has rejected the notion of private property and the legal system as a "cognitive creation". That would be correct. That moment that man would be free from these cognitive creations but possibly some seconds later he would have to deal with a situation regarding factors like the owners fist,his face and maybe an unexpected public dissaproval. What I mean is that words that describe concepts like time and freedom are so relative as much as the cognitions creating them.
Anyone has his own definition for any meaning and acts accordingly. Sometimes a lot of people tend to agree or disagree on a definition and also act upon that agreement or disagreement creating common interest groups or trying to kill each other.
So in the end I think that we cant really be sure about the complete consequences of our actions or about the truth (if such a thing exists), but we can act upon that knowledge. All we have to decide is what to do with the time (free or not) that is given us.
(Gandalf quietly clapping in the dark.)
Brilliant man, I absolutely loved it, It reminded me of the "Paradox of Choice" TED Talk, in that increasing the amounts of "Freedoms" actually restricts you due to self-imposed restraints from the mentality that "If there are so many options there is bound to be the perfect one", And unfortunately this strive for perfection limits our abilities of being truly 'free'.
There's also the idea that the choice you are making is the wrong one. This can lead to a spiral of doubt and inaction. And one can view that inaction as putting one's mentality inside of a cage.
Absolutely man, that is exactly what I meant :D
Great read, really liked it and I can relate (most people can I guess) to this.
The thing is that the majority of people are stepping through their comfort blankets all their lives even if they have some real dreams. So, the catch is that their fears (i.e. losing / changing job, opinion of other people etc.) are bigger than their actual dreams.
That's how they fail in achievieng their dreams. They can't even make the first step because of that.
People also need to reevaluate if their dreams our their own dream or just build on notions of society's ideal life. many people think money is the answer to their problems. When perhaps money is simply a choice and other more direct paths exist. But if such dreams are authentic, I agree with you 100%.
"...What will you do when all of your responsibilities disappear?..." This seems backward to me. The more free I am, the more responsibility I have. When my time and attention are commoditized by a boss or a ruler, I have almost no real responsibility for what I do. I am merely an extension of some other person's will. But when I have an hour of free time, I have an hour within which I can exercise my will as I see fit. That takes a lot of effort, and a lot of discipline. Most people don't want that, because it's uncomfortable. Well, I want it. That's why I got a steemit account in the first place.
That's exactly what I was thinking. Freedom = responsibility for one's own life.
Having zero responsibilities means you are not free at all and needn't worry about achieving anything as someone else is sure to handle it for you.
Thus, as this post points out, a complete lack of freedom leads to an unfulfilling life of misery. :)
But the burden of freedom can also lead to a life of misery, if you don't have the right mindset. Some people just can't take that they are completely to blame for their choices and existence. It's a lot easier to blame someone else when you're not happy.
True, it is much easier to blame someone else for our own shortcomings, but the end result of doing that is ongoing discomfort and sadness. Doing it doesn't ever actually make anyone happy.
You're right, I was kind of tired when I wrote the post. I initially thought about going a different way with the post and never addressed that. In terms of the post, one realizes the responsibility that they have when they are they are free.
The choice of how to spend one's time is not the point of freedom. Being reminded that we are "free" because we may choose how we spend that hour or where we eat dinner, etc. is frequently used to create the illusion of freedom for a populace that doesn't understand the concept and generally isn't interested in the critical distinction. True freedom is really the inner understanding that one has the natural right to hold all opinions and make all decisions autonomously and free of coercion, coupled with the willingness to live according to one's mind. Sometimes I am minded to do things which will generate an undesirable outcome, but I elect to avoid that outcome by modifying my behavior. Obviously the undesirable outcome is a constraint or a coercion, but what of the election of behavior modification? This is the question I pose to you: Is the conscious election to modify one's behavior in order to avoid an undesirable outcome a loss of freedom?
Now to answer your statement that "freedom is overrated", I believe that freedom is misunderstood and underappreciated.
The burden of responsibility only exists when one is free. One cannot receive blame if they aren't free to act they way they wish. Everyone ultimately is very free. The issue is that is it very hard to live according to one's mind. Someone cannot tell the future thus there is no certainty of outcome. We don't know if what we are doing will produce an undesirable outcome thus it is kind of hard to modify one's behavior. Thus we reach a dilemma where we are free in that we can make any choice, but face producing a suboptimal choice. We have so much control over our person (freedom) but can come to regret it when we frequently travel suboptimal choices. Freedom is nice to have, but it can be annoying when it comes to this restriction. Sure, freedom is not appreciated (People Imagine Their Own Chains), but that does mean it should be romanticized when clearly some parts of freedom suck.
But do you really regret the suboptimal choice you made or the freedom that you had to make your own choice?
I regret the suboptimal choice, but when it comes to make the next decision, the decision is harder due to the sheer number of options I have. I regret the choice, but the freedom increases the difficulty of the next choice. Sure, it's not freedom's fault, it's mine, but maybe you are on to something. Maybe I stuck in the paradigm I've described. I'm blaming freedom for the curse of optionality, when I should accept these options and try to become a better decision maker.
@greer184 thank you for this post in pointing out that people need to stop making excuses why their life is not what they want it to be and start taking responsibility of their own actions or the lack thereof.
Yes. I never felt that excuses have ever helped in a situation. They often get in the way of finding one's responsibility and recognizing freedom. But the burden of freedom isn't easy and sometimes making excuses feels better than taking blame. Thus, freedom is overrated. Freedom is great in that you can make any choice, but sucks in you take all of the blame.
i really enjoyed this post
Freedom is really an illusion..liberation is key
When you look at how decision making works, there are always things that will affect it that we cant control by sheer willpower.
What constitue a good decision also has to do with including self awareness, awareness of environement, of physical law, consequences of actions on our own health, of what is possible or not etc.
'For men in a state of freedom had thatch for their shelter, while slavery dwells beneath marble and gold.'
Seneca the Younger