On Freedom

The original title for yesterday's post was simply "Freedom".

I changed it, because there is a difference to freedom and being free.

In our daily, human lives, we're afforded certain freedoms depending on the specific context. Our freedoms also layer up in different ways, where we have a Constitution as foundation, but can then add agreed freedoms in our workplace or local community or at home.

Beyond that, I also believe that we have an inherit, humanistic freedom that we rarely tap into. In a world, where we're all merely a similar sack of atoms, we're already free from many of the things that we perceive impedes our freedom.

Irrespective of how you define freedom, there is a difference to having access to it and actually being free.

To actually be free, I think we need to travel in two directions:

The first part is a solo player game, where I get to decide how I relate to and experience my own values, standards, goals, dreams, ambitions, fears, desires, and needs.

When I hold these too tightly, take them too seriously or attach myself to them too much, they have the ability to trip me up and make me less free. This is self-inflicted and whenever I get there, I have the opportunity of acknowledging the role my ego plays in that.

The second part is entirely multiplayer. It's all about community, connection and those universal bits that makes all of us the same.

There is a certain safety in the commons. I don't have to stand up or stand out or be different. I struggle with those same very human things that my neighbour suffers with. And when we suffer together, maybe we dissolve this illusion that being human needs to be any different to what it is now.