The Freedom to Be Free
Can people be asked to appreciate only one freedom, namely, the freedom to be free? Thus, not the freedom to incarcerate oneself or others?
You might already know I’m talking about the ego: the self-referenced, overly conceptual part of any total person. Please read ‘The Story of Ego.’
Ego wants an illusion of freedom.
As a matter of fact, since ego lives in illusion. There is no living reality in any overly conceptual viewpoint by itself. Hindus/Buddhists call this ‘Maya.’ I elsewhere denote it as the consequence of the basic cognitive illusion.
Yet, within this illusion, ego is alive and kicking ― if need be, all the time and to a huge degree.
Ego also wants to incarcerate everything it cannot directly control. Logically, one can see such incarceration as the second line of control. Unfortunately, there is an infinity of lines to be encountered when one makes the utterly exhausting effort.
Oh, being tired.
Many people who clamor for freedom are incarcerated in themselves. They get freedom at most in illusion only.
The freedom to be free
As free as the grass grows, yes, naturally free, born free, not in an illusion, but in nature itself!
There is only one human freedom: the freedom of being a total person.
Freedom of speech?
For instance, freedom of speech is only meaningful if it’s the speech of a total person ― certainly not that of an illusory ego. To gain broad freedom, it is mandatory to put effort into it. This may be counter-intuitive for someone who thinks ‘free’ means something like ‘without constraints.’
Think again. Ego knows no constraints – for itself. Contrary to this, it puts them on others in order to not let them (or one’s deeper self) constrain itself in a zero-sum of freedom. But that is not freedom at all.
Genuine freedom of speech is, first and foremost, the freedom to listen to others.
As said, ego is a great illusionist.
Even more, the biggest ego carries the biggest illusions. Thus, it can hold to others a mirror of freedom. In that case, look again: there is no space behind the mirror, no expansive landscape ― just quicksilver, and even that only in a solid state.
The freedom to senselessly scold is no freedom of speech, nor is flipping out whatever comes to one’s tongue under free speech pretense.
Likewise, the freedom to manipulate others is no freedom of any total person. Therefore, it is no freedom to be free at all.
On the other hand, the freedom to deeply fall into oneself, come out again, and strive to free all sentient beings is real ― even if it’s impossible to accomplish.
The freedom to care is real ― whether in action or warm and friendly meditation.
Related Posts
Agents and Expected Rewards
This is a story from expectation to motivation. Any motivation is eventually the expectation of ‘reward,’ be it a concrete one or more abstract; be it deeply value-based or more superficial. The simple case looks like conditioning. You may read first about what agents are. An agent acts upon a reward by learning from it Read the full article…
Non-Conscious Processing is Meaningful
What science shows is not always easy to cope with. Especially if it’s about ourselves. Especially about the deeper parts of ourselves. You cannot consciously decide what is meaningful to you. Dear reader, if this is new to you, then please don’t get too disconcerted. This is a small step – not even a step Read the full article…
Your Memories are Alive
Memories are living beings in continual motion. Not any memory is a replica of what happened in the past. No library We don’t have a library of memories in our head, nor a computer-like database in which one can perform a straightforward lookup of wanted information. Instead, we have a hundred billion neurons forming mental-neuronal Read the full article…