Freedom has been on my mind lately, and that is why the name of this blog is directly about it. I strongly believe that freedom is not always desirable and that it is actually restraining or debilitating instead of freeing. This is the idea I hope to play with as I write further, and please add to the discussion because I am by no means set on this idea.
To start out I want to discuss choices. If we have the freedom to choose from any potential path in life and have no established means to rank those options, because they are equal, than how would we ever decide anything. I am not saying that equality is the same as freedom, but it is related in many ways. Today, there is a lot of post-modernist thinking about equality in the sense of being anti-hierarchy. I feel that this is the like wanting to be free of any order or system. And without order, there may or may not be chaos, but there is paralysis. We all operate on some basic system of organization, whether you consciously thought about it or not. And we all have a personal idea of the order of the universe which allows us to function in this world without being paralyzed. But to be free to this, which is one kind of freedom, is not very fun. I cannot help but take the idea of freedom to the extreme, literal sense of the word; free from any constraint...which includes our upbringing, our habits, our beliefs and our identity. But I doubt that it is possible or desirable. I find it amazing that people can talk so loosely about freedom, when there are too many ways to understand the term for me to throw the word around lightly!
In later posts, I want to discuss the freedom we have in love and relationships, which is seeming to make us more unhappy that I would want.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Introduction
To me blogging is a foreign idea. It has been so long since I kept a diary, let alone wanted others to know my innermost thoughts, that I have to reframe my way of thinking about writing and begin to open up to an audience.
This is for myself, and if you stumble across this and enjoy it I will be pleased, but I am trying to find an outlet for my ideas and a means to process my thoughts. But that is enough of a disclaimer for now. I also want to say that I hope to infrequently write as I am writing a letter, because I typically have a specific person in mind for a letter, and I do not want to write to someone in particular. This introduction is a practice post, and a warm-up for the real thing. I am nervous about this and worried about what may occur from this. But I feel like I should attempt to document what my mind is up to, if just for my own amusement in the future.
I welcome any and all comments or questions you may have. I am very interested in starting a dialogue about something interesting and finding new people who think in the strange way I do. And for a sampling if that, I want to attempt to describe it. My mind is always active and sometimes a great distraction and a roller-coaster. I will think about odd things that most people often take for granted, like how are Reece's Pieces made and why do women in this culture wear so much make-up. Also, I am constantly wondering what is the self and what is our identity as an individual and a culture. Is anything about the self static. There was a time, when I could not fathom that I was different than my thoughts, but I realized that there has to be a thinker that thinks a thought...and so therefore who is that, what is that? This was a very intense realization when it actually got through to me. So now I play with identity and stay always fluid...never stagnant.
This is for myself, and if you stumble across this and enjoy it I will be pleased, but I am trying to find an outlet for my ideas and a means to process my thoughts. But that is enough of a disclaimer for now. I also want to say that I hope to infrequently write as I am writing a letter, because I typically have a specific person in mind for a letter, and I do not want to write to someone in particular. This introduction is a practice post, and a warm-up for the real thing. I am nervous about this and worried about what may occur from this. But I feel like I should attempt to document what my mind is up to, if just for my own amusement in the future.
I welcome any and all comments or questions you may have. I am very interested in starting a dialogue about something interesting and finding new people who think in the strange way I do. And for a sampling if that, I want to attempt to describe it. My mind is always active and sometimes a great distraction and a roller-coaster. I will think about odd things that most people often take for granted, like how are Reece's Pieces made and why do women in this culture wear so much make-up. Also, I am constantly wondering what is the self and what is our identity as an individual and a culture. Is anything about the self static. There was a time, when I could not fathom that I was different than my thoughts, but I realized that there has to be a thinker that thinks a thought...and so therefore who is that, what is that? This was a very intense realization when it actually got through to me. So now I play with identity and stay always fluid...never stagnant.
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