11 Comments

Such an important discussion of the thing I most cherish in my life. The ability to live freely in an organized system that least inhibits my ability to fulfill the needs of myself and my family. There's so much that goes with that though, that too often is taken for granted sand forgotten. With great freedom comes great responsibility to preserve the system that guarantees the value most important in my life, and to the lives of all people born free. Thanks for the the post. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness and perspective.

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"Freedom" is a subjective term and is also situational, measured in the context of the freedom of individuals who are nearby to you and that of society at large.

Individual freedom is achieved in context.

Let a young William Mumy demonstrate one way to do this. This had to be one of the easiest tasks for an actor to do. Very little dialogue to learn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuAzvb38PyI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuAzvb38PyI

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I am straight, white and male. Freedom will come when all are entitled to the rights and privileges I have.

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Great, I am able to type now without a subscription box from Substack blocking me.

Someone once said to me we have too much freedom. At the time I was flabbergasted to hear him say that. How can you have too much freedom? This was many years ago when I was still a young man. Over the years I have come to appreciate the wisdom of his words. Freedom is imperative but freedom without intelligence is wasted - even dangerous. We hope when we are young that freedom will bring it's own intelligence, and sometimes it does if we are extraordinarily alert and perhaps a little lucky. Life has a way of grinding us down and dulling that intelligence though, leading to all kinds of problems so we seek safety and security in tradition and a reliance on outward structure and appearance, which is the very thing we sought freedom from to begin with.

When we use escape from responsibility as a substitute for freedom then the problems begin. Escape through various means is always temporary, and so not really freedom at all.

Psychological freedom is what is really lacking in our world. We have about every other kind of freedom you can imagine but psychologically we are still burdened with the same impediments to freedom that man has endured for time immemorial.

We can talk about political freedom and economic freedom, which have their place of course, but without psychological freedom they have very little meaning because the inner turmoil of man always overcomes the outer order superimposed by thought, which is forever limited in it's scope.

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Freedom is the ultimate gift and ultimate responsibility. It allows for people to fully express themselves (even those speaking hatefully, per their 1st Amendment right), to have the ability to be part of our government through voting, to be a full person regardless of our race and/or gender. To exercise our religion, even if it's not based in Christianity. All these rights (and more, of course) also mean that we have to stand up to protect our freedoms, to protect our fragile democracy in the face of those who put it in peril....especially when they live within our own borders. We also have the freedom to say "I love my country AND I see these areas where we can do/be better".

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Freedom is being able to have thoughts, feelings and ideas that may not agree with others, but am still allowed to have those as long as my actions with those do not interfere with anyone else's rights. At the same time, if someone is not harming another, they can still express those in a respectful way. It's a little complicated, but it's like a protest is okay and should be allowed in a free country, but a protest where derogatory insults are being used or things are being thrown is not part of freedom and should not be allowed.

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Freedom to me is a gift, but freedom is also a responsibility. Not all people will receive this gift and not all people who receive it allow others to receive it too. Freedom to me would be allowing everyone to be free to be themselves and feel SAFE to be that way.

This is really a hard question and it really depends on who you ask as well. It is something that needs to be asked though and discussed.

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