freedom

The concept of freedom is a popular theme. It sells records and garners votes but what is it really and how does one get it? If freedom is anything, it is the opposite of dependency. Anything that we find necessary limits our freedom. Requirements for air, water and food are all physical dependencies. We also have many psychological and emotional dependencies. We find so many things we have to have. No wonder that yearning for freedom is a common human theme.

Where does the idea of independence come from if all experience is wrapped in layered dependencies? The concept of a being that transcends all experience and exists without dependency is unreasonable because it is contrary to experience, unless such a being exists. It follows that the desire to be free is also unreasonable if there is no possible fulfillment for the desire. Grant then, a being that is independent, self-existent, the ideal we yearn for.

Freedom cannot be accrued it can only be given. Any attempt to take freedom displays dependency on whoever it is taken from. Freedom can be given in the form of service that allows others to be independent. Since it cannot be taken, required or coerced without becoming dependency and can only be given from one who has to one who has not, the giver is necessarily more free than the receiver.

What is the point of freedom? Why should it be qualitatively better than dependency? The point is life. If we were free from having to eat we would have life without being dependent on food. It would not be possible to remove all dependencies since we are created rather than self-existent. It turns out however that all our real requirements for existence are supplied from the same source as our very existence. The one self-existent gives life and all needed to sustain it. It is possible to reduce our dependencies to a single point thus becoming as free as possible in this human life.