Is freedom a state of mind or an objective reality? We usually think of freedom as that conjuncture where we can do whatever we want, while the lack of freedom is our obstruction from taking our own course. But, if we go further with this idea, we start thinking: are we free to wish? Or, in other words, does what we wish (or we don’t wish) for come from our freedom to decide, from the information we have about ourselves and about the universe we live in?
Don’t you think that our birth represents the first pillar from all the pillars of a fence that will build-up around us during our entire lives? Maybe the first think that we see, we smell, we hear will influence in a decisive way our future lives. It is said that an informed man is a free man. I don’t believe that. On the contrary, I think he is less free than the uninformed one. Because all information is assimilated (whether we like it or not) with a tiny influence coming from the way it was presented to us. Then, how much freedom to decide what we believe, what we know, what we want does that lives us?
I wonder... If a man receives only the pure information, without any values “imprinted” on it (the good or bad thing), would he still be able to take a decision? Freedom provides to people a feeling of power. They have power over themselves! They think they are more authentic when they are enjoying freedom. This is why, usually, the desire for freedom doesn’t come from a profound necessity of doing something (not allowed by others), but it comes just as a revolt against the fence, as a revolt with its only purpose of declaring the independence.
People that feel free also feel different, right? But in most of the cases the disappearance of external censorship leads to the acknowledging of the internal one. The rules of this censorship are also established after the information accumulated in time, and, of course, off all life experiences. But these too were transformed into information that is processed and stored through our thinking mechanisms; they depend on our mental pattern. It’s like a vicious circle.
So I ask again? Are we really free? Human history showed that people actually don’t want to be free. People are more afraid to be put in the position to choose than to be confronted with the situation to accept one alternative or another, depending on the constraining external circumstances. The more alternatives there are, the more time people lose in trying to pick one, and the more scared they are of having made the wrong decision. Thus, when the there is no external constrain, people create themselves an internal one, to make it easier to choose. Our beliefs are actually the internal complexes of references that help us pass over all difficulties. This saves us from many emotional and psychological blocks, helps us always go further and never “freeze” when we have to make a decision.
But are we really free when taking that decision, or do we actually depend on our fear of being free?
Gives more to the definition that the more we come to know the more we realize that we know nothing at all. It seems like having freedom takes a great deal of responsibility and hard work to maintain and practice.