Freedom

I, like I'm sure many others have, thought about and considered the question: "What is Freedom and what does it mean to me?" Like so many things, it's a philosophical subject with many answers, all of which transcends mere meaning as put in the latest dictionary. I can only speak from my own point-of-view and what freedom means to me. To you, to my next door neighbor, to the stranger down the street or even beyond that, freedom may have anywhere from a slightly to completely different meaning. Be that as it may, agree with me or not, (in part or in whole), this is my interpretation of freedom is and what it means to me.

Freedom is personal responsibility
Freedom is not the right to say or do whatever you want without personal responsibility, being held accountable, or avoiding any consequences.

Freedom is the ability to think and do whatever we may choose, but to be held accountable and responsible for our thoughts, words, actions and deeds on all levels, personal, societal, global, and universal, along with any and all consequences thereof, see and unseen, acknowledged and unacknowledged which is freedom.

Freedom is responsibility, not the lack of it. It is responsibility to one's self, one's family, ones' community, one's society, one's world and one's universe; as all affects the All. The free person is responsible with their thoughts. words, actions and deeds, as these are things of power; and the power of freedom is responsibility. Bound together, these things cannot be undone, they cannot be separated, for when one is separated from their responsibility, one is no longer free, but enslaved. Freedom is anything but free, and so few people truly understand that. They think freedom is earned on the battlefield and wars over land and country; but I say the greatest war has still not been won. It is the war within. It is the war of our shadow selves, of humanity, or our lack of it. As a species, there are things that are right and wrong based on societal rules and expectations; but as species, a family on this planet which is but one small piece of a much larger albeit unseen universe; we have have a responsibility to ourselves, our species, and to the universe at large to not allow things such as as we do to this world, ourselves and each other, indeed to the All.

We are free to drop a pebble in the pond, but lest we be fools, we should know that the action of tossing the pebble into the pond affected not only the water into which it was thrown and passed through, but also the rock itself, the air through which it passed, the land from which it came, the ripples it caused, the pond or lake bed in which it settled, the sediment in which it displaced and albeit minutiae, the ecosystem and indeed all life on Earth is affected, seen and unseen, known and unknown, et al.

Freedom is the authority over ourselves. It is the responsibility in the microcosm and the macrocosm, in, for and of the All.

Copyright © 2010 Ron Schreiner All Rights Reserved