Laws and Chains: Consciously heeding the absurd

^{Image taken from Pixabay}

We cling to the idea of "reasons", "causes", "motives". We say thanks because it is "good manners" and we drive to the right because it is "the norm", "the rules", "the law". These strict abstract guidelines take us by the hand in our day to day so that we may not leave the path of propriety. Compared to absolute freedom, most of us are as modest as nuns and priests.

That is not necessarily a "bad" thing. Society would not hold if the billions that populate the Earth were all depraved. Let us imagine for a second what those freedoms would entail for our communities. Imagine that nobody cared about clothes, about the cleanliness of the streets or about the physical or mental integrity of others. Everyone could walk naked, poop on the streets, throw their poop at others while screaming like monkeys and laugh out loud while taking someone else's possessions. I'm not saying that this would happen, but that it could should there be no strict following for our rules.

Nonetheless, rules, norms, traditions and laws are abstract pieces of human creation that impose a specific code of conduct on people. We abide by them, however, not because they hold society together, but because we were educated to do so. We feel better when we follow these social presets. But once we know that they are simple abstract things that need not be followed by divine commandment, do we somehow become free? I for one do not. I still walk with my clothes on, I refuse to steal, to betray those who have put their trust on me, to scream in quiet places, and I feel better when I am very polite and nice to people.

I am as free as my mind lets me be. Now it's my preferences instead of my beliefs that tie me to the path of propriety.