on preserving freedom ...
Am I free? when? at birth? when do I give up my freedom? to whom? outside forces? inside forces?
Over the course of history many people have fought to preserve their freedom, what does that mean?
what is it needed to "preserve" my freedoms intact. Is it "obedience"? or simply that I feel free?
Memorial day brings the thought of those who fought for our freedom, to which we ought to be indebted forever, as they died to preserve our most precious gift. To them my respect and gratitude, it is perhaps thinking of them that I am posting this.
Memorial day brings the thought of those who fought for our freedom, to which we ought to be indebted forever, as they died to preserve our most precious gift. To them my respect and gratitude, it is perhaps thinking of them that I am posting this.
Recently I have gone through an experience we have all gone at some extent or another in our lives, which is the moment when we feel that our freedom to choose has been compromised, when we feel our choices are limited by certain actions we have made, whether by criticism of another person(s) or by our own doings. A dear friend of mine stated to me that part of a bad relationship is not to feel free to act, and that a good relationship makes us feel free to do as we please. Libertas comes from the root liber which means free; the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. There are two words of the same root, Liberty and Libertinage, yet both come from the same root of freedom they surely do not mean anything that resembles one another. The thought lingered on my mind regarding this feeling of a good relationship, where we feel free to act, to do as we please, free from criticism, free from censoring of others. Is this what Liberty, Freedom is? to have the absolute liberty to do as we please so far as to not even be criticized for our actions or call upon our mistakes by others? I think that that in itself is a different topic, the one of responsibility to help our loved ones on their journey, or our ability to hear others and be helped, humility if one may; so I will leave that part for another time for now and focus on the liberty side.
One of my favourite thoughts in life came from someone who stated that we lack originality, as what we are thinking has already been thought by another person before, that even the words we use have been used before, the atoms we are composed of have also been used before, therefore making us not original at all as we might like to think so, but a bunch of recycled material. I recall, as a child, being faced with mathematical binomials and polynomials and being obsessed with observing them, I spent hours analyzing them until one day I made a discovery! I had come up with a fascinating series of numbers that I had just created, so I thought; excited I went to my teacher and explained my theory, he sounded even more excited to see my research; he asked if I had copied it from somewhere to which I felt humiliated by his comment and said, no, I came up with it on my own of course; I must deserve some award one day for my creativity I am certain, I thought; I could almost dream of a Nobel Prize or some mathematical award at least to be honest. To my dismay I was informed that somebody else in the 1200's named Leonardo Fibonacci had already made MY discovery, furthermore a French mathematician in the 1600's had worked with it and developed MY so hard worked triangle and was called already Pascal's Triangle; my dreams of the Alejandro's Triangle and the Morante's rules of numerical series were crashed. Was I Original? not at all, Was I Authentic? yes, big difference, I had discovered on my own a previously know fact.
Why do I tell this story? because I want my two cents of recognition of course! No, I tell it because it has taught me that my ignorance made me think of my originality when the reality was that the thought was old, I was rediscovering it for sure but I was not reinventing it; I was being authentic on my discovery but nonetheless unoriginal. How does this apply to liberty and thought? If we were to research the way we like to or choose to live our lives it will always fall into some path of philosophy already stated by others perhaps centuries ago; yet the sweet taste of ignorance makes us believe we are being so original on our thoughts and living our life according to our own believes and whims on not following anything or nothing but our own thoughts; I say this as a commentary on the mockery some make at those who choose to openly follow a pattern already stated and call themselves followers of that path, whether religious or agnostics, or libertarians, or anything, those who we openly follow something of some sorts, a previously marked path. The way we choose to live our lives falls no matter what always on some philosophy already described by someone, libertarians, religious, egoist anarchism, agnostics, etc, etc, etc. A little research will open our eyes not only to how the zodiac on a magazine describe us so well but even better, how a philosophy of life is so exact in the way we feel and act, how our thoughts fall into place in some given ideology. A little research has never hurt no one.
Back to Liberty. My actions and decisions will either preserve the integrity of my liberty or jeopardize it, there is no in-between point, no middle nor freezing point but rather one way or the other, them being mutually exclusive; one is a slave or a freeman was the status of old days, and today though it has changed, it has not. Let me rephrase, any and every decision, thought, action I make is knitted on my liberty, it has a direct impact on it. Some of my favourite thoughts come from the idea of deceit, I love marketing and how it goes so deep into our brains even as to deceive us of the reality, of even our own needs, it plays with our desires and impulses, brilliant! The only weapon against deceit is knowledge, truth. When we are offered the idea of doing anything to "enjoy our freedom", we are ought to review the impact on our capacity to make choices; often times those invitations to do so come with actions that do not preserve our freedom as offered, it actually hinders it, it narrows my capacity to choose afterwards; if I am going to be under the influence of any substance no I am not going to be free but rather my freedom will shrink, yet the advertiser and my own mind tells me that I should do it in the name of freedom, because I am free to do so and because it will make me happier, ask any slave about happiness once detained, ask any addict about it and we will know for sure that it is not sweet nor tasty; these are the easy ones, the others, the ones related to thought rather, are more intricate; does what I believe in allows me to preserve my freedom or does it make me an slave? whether is religion, or dogma, or philosophy, does it enslaves me or does it make me free? not merely today but in the long run? can I project these thoughts to the infinite and still say yes it will still preserve my freedom? If it holds truth in all scenarios then it must be true says logic, but if I can think of one circumstance in which it doesn't then I should review my theories, not because I want to be original but because I want to be authentic rather.
Someone has made the case that while walking on the shore of a beach with signs warning of the danger of the waters due to whirlwinds one cannot say in the name of freedom I am going for a swim, because I am free to act, sure we are, but once we are caught in a whirlwind then that was adios to our freedom, we can no longer choose, we can no longer use that freedom as we gave it up the moment we decided to not follow the warnings, we cannot choose any longer where will we go as the whirlwind owns us, it will decide for us the next moves. So it is in following the warnings and being obedient to rules where our freedom stays intact? Again let me say that at all times we are always following someone's rules whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not; let us not be deceived that we are so original that we act for ourselves without any exterior influence as we are not Robinson Crusoe; life, society, our family, the tube, magazines, a book, none are original yet we are constantly following something or someone, a path, it is only when we make it our own by the power of thought that at least we can say I am authentic yet not original. It is not our own path as we did not created, yet it is our path of choice.
Following warnings set by others does help keep our liberty intact, our freedom intact; you can ask any soldier who have been in a battlefield and they will surely tell you of the crucial importance of following signs and orders. The danger of the life of no rules is obvious that soon enough we will be trapped in some whirlwind, soon enough we will be victims of some trap, soon enough our freedom will be limited by our choices. The reason why evolution has granted us the capacity to write, read, learn from others is exactly that, so we can read the signs of other's errors and not step on them. Easier said than done for sure, but let us be clear that it is on the boundaries set by others that there is success on this journey. I just watched a video published in Western Australia about a group of kids who in the attempt to enjoy life skip school and go to a beach, then they get blown into pieces (graphic) because at the end they forgot to read a sign near the entrance of the beach who read, do not enter, mine field. I am not suggesting that fear is or should be a motivator but rather the preservation of freedom should. I do not jump off a cliff because I am a chicken or I am afraid, but rather because I know it will end my life and my liberty to keep choosing. Rules are all over the universe, they govern it, they govern how we exist, how we live; my fascination with science comes from trying to understand those rules, I love the idea of how by following this or that rule and applying it to this or that we will get the results we look, fascinating knowledge, rules. Applying the rules is yet another topic and perhaps the essence of life.
Following warnings set by others does help keep our liberty intact, our freedom intact; you can ask any soldier who have been in a battlefield and they will surely tell you of the crucial importance of following signs and orders. The danger of the life of no rules is obvious that soon enough we will be trapped in some whirlwind, soon enough we will be victims of some trap, soon enough our freedom will be limited by our choices. The reason why evolution has granted us the capacity to write, read, learn from others is exactly that, so we can read the signs of other's errors and not step on them. Easier said than done for sure, but let us be clear that it is on the boundaries set by others that there is success on this journey. I just watched a video published in Western Australia about a group of kids who in the attempt to enjoy life skip school and go to a beach, then they get blown into pieces (graphic) because at the end they forgot to read a sign near the entrance of the beach who read, do not enter, mine field. I am not suggesting that fear is or should be a motivator but rather the preservation of freedom should. I do not jump off a cliff because I am a chicken or I am afraid, but rather because I know it will end my life and my liberty to keep choosing. Rules are all over the universe, they govern it, they govern how we exist, how we live; my fascination with science comes from trying to understand those rules, I love the idea of how by following this or that rule and applying it to this or that we will get the results we look, fascinating knowledge, rules. Applying the rules is yet another topic and perhaps the essence of life.
Why do we give up so easily what others in times past have held so dear, even fought for, died for? Liberty is precious, let us preserve it at all cost, I am not talking about political liberties but rather the one and only liberty nobody can steal from us but only ourselves, the freedom to choose, our own free will. I need to be more careful of how my actions affect my liberty, I need to evaluate better, be a better strategist on this game of life, on this battle. Every action, every decision we make has an enormous impact on our freedom, whether seen or unseen, let us not be deceived by marketing strategies, by dogma, or belief but let us remain free; the truth will set us free was offered not only by Jesus but by all intelligent beings who walked this planet at one time or another: truth will preserve our liberty.
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