What is Freedom?
Are we all slaves?
We’re all slaves to something. We all have masters.
“…all are slaves to hope or fear.” (Seneca’s letters to Lucilius XLVII)
There are two types of freedom.
Freedom To - nobody is stopping you from doing what you want to do. For example, in America you have the freedom TO protest without fear of having your bank account frozen and in Canada you do not.
Freedom From - you aren’t controlled by your own hopes, fears, desires and made-up pressures (working definition. open to improvements)
We consider someone free if he has freedom to do whatever he wants. A man with mountains of money may be just as much a slave as a man who works for no pay.
I could be tremendously successful but every move I make is decided by my fear of losing it all. If my fear never lets me do what I enjoy. If it makes me constantly spend my time protecting my success, my money or my status. Then am I really free?
I could be a seemingly normal person with a million desires. I want desperately the things I don’t have. I spend all my waking moments chasing all the things I don’t have. Then as soon as I have one thing I single-mindedly chase another. Then am I really free?
The world around us might let us live freely. But if the world inside us doesn’t, then we cannot be free.
Question of The Day
What does freedom mean to you?
Your Friend,
Noah “BigNerd” Sochaczevski