Hi,
It might be that I'm having some kind of mid-life crisis as I question everything or almost everything around me. I said almost everything as my family gives me the balance needed.
Well, today I was thinking about freedom. Are we really free? Or do we ever are free?
This is what was on my mind today. I'm not completely free and I think no one is.
I have all sort of ties that I can't let go.
Well, for one being born in communism and living now in capitalism I can say that I'm free. If I check the situation based on ties, I'm not.
Do you feel you are free?
In Europe we have what I call "apparent freedom", meaning that you have the freedom to believe that you have freedom, but states are taking care that you don't have real freedom with the drafted legislation.
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Where is the freedom? Which state has it?
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We have here the "apparent freedom"", others don't have even this one. True freedom is still to be discovered...
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Rule by force is the disease, who and how are symptoms.
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I'm still thinking which ruling system doesn't need force in any of it's form. I can't see it.
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Lol, the tell me it is called 'freedom'.
But, it does require that each person be responsible for quelling violence in their vicinity.
Often without help.
Voluntary federations can police larger territories.
This novel outlined a good one, in 1887.
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Thanks for the hint. Need to check the novel.
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So, are we living in a simulation, or not yet? :)
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Might be. One can never be sure about it.
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I am not Free, I do not live in a Free Country and in addition my human relationships and responsibilities also impact my ability to be Free.
However, in most elements of my life, I've picked everything I have... Marriage, Family, Jobs, and financial status... So, that also implies Freedom.
#itscomplicated
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What is a Free country?
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Can free and country coexist?
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True, our choices, our freedom.
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I would say that there's an enormous amount of energy put into making people perceive freedom in ways that benefit the ruling class. "Democracy" for example, is generally used as a synonym for freedom but as has been said, democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
I'm beginning to understand that real freedom begins with freedom of the mind, which requires taking responsibility for your mind - your thoughts, beliefs, opinions etc. Most people are not really in control of their own minds. Sad but true.
It goes back to the ruling class again, and their means of perception management - one of which is the mainstream media. If you want to know about propaganda in the media, how deep it goes, the best resource I've found so far is Jon Rappoport's interviews with Ellis Medavoy (pseudonym), which you can get online. Finding out about how freedom has been eroded is the first step to getting it back, which I do believe is actually happening, slowly but surely, on a global level.
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Interesting view. I was thinking that the system is to big for me to change it so I need to adapt to it. Metaphorical speaking become the wolf instead of the sheep.
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It's an unfortunate metaphor, which has been used before e.g. Training Day (2001) -
BTW, synchronistically, I saw someone post this on Twitter today so I thought I'd post it here:
It's debatable whether the system is too big for an individual to change, given that individuals can and do change things sometimes. But it's changing anyway, in my opinion. I genuinely believe there are very effective forces at work that are helping that along, moving things in the direction of real freedom.
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Life is a balance of freedom and ties. I wrote a post about the biological/philosophical side of this question.
How free are we truly, and how much of us is instinct and biology?
In terms of human relations and life choices, which are already within those basic ties, there are even more limitations. I want to go to France or Germany, walk around in an electronics store and buy a laptop, but I don't even have the money for an aeroplane trip, much less for a laptop. If I leave, I will leave my family stranded, and I have compromises. In a sense, I am free because I can choose to steal someone's money and escape to Europe and do what I want, but that's not the life I want, so, within my freedom, I tie myself by choosing to follow the principles I ascribe to myself.
In this sense, you could say that you're tied to your choices, your morality, your points of view, your past, etc...
But in the end, we have both those ties and our free will. Even if we're tied, we have freedoms, and I choose to live within those freedoms. I struggled a lot with this before thinking about it, but I realised: if we have certain permanent ties that we cannot change, affect, and thinking about them makes us miserable, then we must not think too much about them. We must accept them with joy, and live within our freedoms with joy, and look for things that make us satisfied, and only then will we feel fulfilled.
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Yes I feel free, especially here in South Africa, with very minimal government control or regulation, lots of wide open space, and a carefree lifestyle, with minimal overheads and no dependents. However, no one is free from old age, disease and death, so it is an illusion of freedom for a while until the obligations of the body show us how tied down we are to it. Also we are all under the control of nature, as well as our minds, and conditioning. Unless we make an effort to free the mind via conscious-awakening techniques.
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