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.
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