The 4th of July because of the significance of the Holiday finds me taking an inventory of my personal sense of freedom. Freedom is defined in the dictionary of course but at a gut level it seems easier to understand what freedom isn't. I mean that a lack of freedom in some regard makes it's presence known directly. That doesn't mean you can always pin point the source or cause of your freedom impingement but you can feel it just the same. You can feel it because you have to adjust to it. A freedom impingement directly modifies your behavior. Freedom finds it's meaning by being generally delineated by an adjective or a prepositional phrase. For example, financial freedom or say, freedom of choice. This freedom or that freedom or freedom of this or freedom of that is how freedom is perceived and defined by most.
My financial freedom is what it is, things could always be better or worse. It seems that freedom is a gradient scale perhaps subjective but observable just the same. Yea that's it, I am always in a state of being either more or less free on some particular dynamic. But since the perception of freedom can be subjective that means you could be either more or less free about something and not know it or know it wrong somehow. My freedom of choice is the freedom that is most deluding of all. Because absolute freedom of choice implies infinite choices and that is just never the case. My freedom of choice usually comes down to A or B and between the two I have to choose the one that seems best at the time of choosing. And that right there is a freedom impingement because sometimes I have to choose between two options without the omniscience to see how my choices will turn out and thus be assured of making the right one.
In America we have freedom of speech, within certain mostly reasonably guidelines of course. Etiquette not being the least of these. It's the freedom to act that is severely curtailed. Let's just say you can think and say what you want even if just to yourself but you are definitely not free to ever do anything at all that you may want. We have the right to protest. Naturally you have to actually ask permission to protest which is then granted by a permit or license which then tells you when and where you may indeed protest to your hearts content within those restrictions. So the reality is you may complain or blog about or protest the war in Iraq but of course you or your group may not try to actually stop the war in Iraq unilaterally. I'm sure these things seem obvious to most of you and you mostly agree that this is how it should be to have a society. The catch is, that if you don't agree and take wayward action, the society will indeed curtail your freedom. But like I said at the beginning I needed to take an inventory of my personal sense of freedom so I'm just thinking this stuff out.
As I type I am free to breathe though I have no sane alternate choice in the matter. I am not locked up in a cell so I have my Liberty such as it is. I can get up and walk down the street if I want to, but I pretty much have to stay right near the street or I might be trespassing somewhere. I can drive my car as far as I want or more realistically, especially these days, as far as I can afford and generally only on streets and only on the right side of the street at that and within certain velocity guidelines. There's a lot you have to agree to and abide by to continue driving your car on the streets.
My health is perhaps something more than a freedom being a gift of grace from my lucky stars. Health is the prerequisite for any type of volitional 4 dimensional action and exercise of practical freedom. You do however have the freedom to take your health for granted and abuse it and lose it. Though you can lose it anyway through no particular action of your own. Enough already, do I feel free or not? geez!
The only real total free zone we have without consequences and responsibility other than to ourselves is in our inner life. And in that inner life the most vital freedom has to be the freedom to dream. I choose to dream. Though I'm not sure what I'm should call that particular grammatical construction. It doesn't seem like a prepositional phrase or an adjective. I should look it up but right now I choose not to because I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming to my hearts content because I can and I choose to. Dreams are awesome, they are the portal, to anyone wishing to go, to a realm beyond time and space. Space and time, the ultimate impingement on freedom. Perhaps I will dream of a universe where time and space are the illusion and the dreams I dream are what's real.
Happy 4th of July!!!!