Oh my, what a word! Freedom – the word carries so many implications on so many levels. People live for it, people die for it. But what is freedom?
As I always do in my blog posts, I offer food for thought from my reflections upon life and my soul on a journey. My hopes are, that my words can stir up something within you, whatever it may be, to set you thinking, feeling and pushing further out of the ‘box’ of your present awareness. I shall invite 5 awesome guys to help me illustrate my point – Socrates, Rousseau, Sartres, Frankl and Jung. Please sit back and imagine having coffee with us!
Whether you agree or not the scope. As my friend Socrates states:
So please, entertain the thoughts I write here. Invite them into the ballroom of your mind, to dance with your present understanding of things. You might enjoy it :)
Life Lesson 25 – Freedom
When I studied philosophy as a teen, a lecturer once wrote this quote by my friend Rousseau on the board and invited us to argue its meaning:
It has taken me up until the present moment to understand the significance of this quote and not feel upset about it like it had upset me in the past. For now, instead of enslaving me, the idea LIBERATES ME. How can ‘being in chains’ be liberating? And how can THIS be FREEDOM?
Those who know me, know I love paradoxes :) fret not, I will explain.
To illustrate what ‘Freedom’ truly is, I shall invite Sartres and Frankl to do the talking. Sartres states that:
Let that sink in for a moment. “Freedom is what YOU DO with what has been done to you.” My emphasis here is what YOU DO. Simply put, what has been done to us – those are THE CHAINS that Rousseau speaks of. We can do nothing about those. However, what we CHOOSE to do with what has been done to us is WHAT GIVE US FREEDOM… OR ENSLAVES US.
You see, you and I and all of humankind have had and will continue having ‘things’ happen to us – this is the nature of our existence on earth. To negate this fundamental understanding of life means that one has not even begun his/her journey towards enlightenment. Things that are BEYOND OUR CONTROL WILL HAPPEN irrespective of how nice, kind, fair, just, wonderful, smart and so on you are. First ACCEPT this fact. Then you can move on. Your freedom starts with accepting this.
Okay, so now that we have liberated our mind from that untruth, we can move forward. Let me share with you what Frankl has to say and then I shall add everything together to give the complete picture:
To understand the impact of this quote, one must read Frankl’s profound experience in a Concentration camp during the second world war in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”. Frankl notes that although EVERYONE was living the same terrifying reality, some were enslaved whilst others were FREE.
What does all this mean? Well here’s my understanding. It’s not sugar-coated, it’s hard core reality simply put. And I believe THIS mindset is the mindset of FREEDOM.
Yes, Rousseau is correct, everywhere we are ‘in chains’. These ‘chains’ are anything and everything that happens to us outside our control irrespective of what we do. This is why I don’t believe in karma. Karma states ‘what goes around comes around’. People who believe this get very upset (as I was) when they realise that even if you are genuine, nice and fair - people will still stab you in the back and misjudge you. Even if you eat healthy and exercise - you may still fall ill with a disease… and so on. ‘Bad’ things happen to ‘good’ people and vice-versa. Please don’t get stuck here. Understand that everyone has these ‘chains’. So now what? Now YOU CHOOSE whether you want freedom or enslavement. And that choice is in your hands. Picture it this way:
Something HAPPENS to you. What are your thoughts about it? Whatever you choose to think will affect and create your feelings, which in turn will lead to your action. If you think negative thoughts, you have chosen to let the circumstance enslave you. On the other hand, if you choose to say “what can I learn from this to become a better person, to get a new perspective on life, to become wiser, to change and grow, to help others from this experience, to become more enlightened… then YOU HAVE CHOSEN FREEDOM. Instead of what has happened enslaving you, you rise above ‘the chains’ to become more enlightened, wiser, more compassionate – you, in essence, are FREE!
I shall conclude with one more quote, from another friend, Mr Jung who has been rather quiet throughout our coffee rendezvous :)
Blessings from Ella xx