If freedom is what you desire, then it is always worth the price. Sometimes the cost of freedom is high and it is not always proportional to the suffering. In order to achieve a minimum of freedom you may need to lose it all: your friends, family, employment, status… This is the arrangement we enter into when desiring freedom. It can be downright brutal in the demands it makes on us and we must decide for ourselves how much we can endure in proportion to how much we desire to be free.
If you choose freedom however, the price is worth it. There is no greater reward for those who choose freedom than the exaltation of liberty. Should you not wish to elect freedom - this is acceptable. Know your bondage, undertake it with humility in the knowledge that you have chosen to limit your freedom. There is nothing undesirable about this position only in so far as you accept your renunciation of freedom. Don’t complain. You chose to limit yourself and perhaps for very noble reasons. Perhaps out of a sense of duty? Or perhaps you chose to limit yourself out of cowardice. It does not matter. The mattering is in the acceptance of the loss of freedom.
A person who complains about their life’s restrictions is the worst kind of bore. The ones who tell you that they can’t do such and such because of this, or that - they have no time to pursue some desire because they have committed themselves to some other arrangement. The answer to these people can only ever be one thing - change it! And then comes the inevitable flood of excuses, the whining and reasons as to why they did not choose freedom. You know these people. The woman who wants to lose weight but cannot because that would involve exercise and diet. The man who wishes for a better job but is too comfortable or afraid to take a risk on something new. The lonely who desire love but will not go out and look.
You might ask what any of this has to do with freedom but I tell you freedom is a state of mind. Freedom is an attitude. Freedom is rebellion. Freedom is courage. Freedom is the act of saying “I will do as I please.” When one chooses to be free, one is making a commitment to oneself. It is an uncompromising (or as uncompromising as we decide it to be) position that affirms our will. This is precisely why the cost of freedom, although perhaps high, is acceptable because the freedom afforded is in alignment with the wishes or will of the individual.
Those who elect freedom relieve themselves from the petty judges of their character. They do not care what others think of them and they do not care if others think they are making life hard for themselves. Choosing freedom is a little bit like going mad. It’s a devotion to a cause no matter what (or as mattered as we can endure).
Free thinking people often seem eccentric, obsessed, irrational and even contradictory for they are following a different path, their own path. Freedom necessitates the need to be in opposition to established codes of conduct and values. Culture, by and large, does not reward individual determination. Culture encourages conformity and homogeneous behaviours. Freedom seeking people are always going to be in opposition by the very nature of them having chosen their own path. This is where most of the suffering and cost of choosing freedom resides. Society will seek to punish the freedom seeker for their nonconformity. This suffering is inflicted both directly through public condemnation, the disapproval of family, friends and peers and systemically through institutions of law, governance, corporations and other entities of oppression.
The cost may be steep. The state may imprison you or kill you in your desire for freedom. Or it may be mild, nothing more than a scowl from mother. But following your own path is always going to cost you. The more self determination you desire - the higher the price, although, as I previously stated, this can vary wildly. Sometimes it seems we must suffer a great deal for simple liberties, the right not to be assaulted, clean water or shelter. Things that might not seem a big ask can sometimes be the hardest to acquire.
In something of a universal ‘levelling of the playing field,’ the cosmic playground does throw us a bone. In the Taoist tradition this is most beautifully exemplified by the principle of Wu wei. Wu wei is the act of inaction or inexertion. Distinct from laziness, Wu wei is the principle of finding the path of least resistance.
The Tao never acts yet nothing is left undone.
Often likened to the action of water, Wu wei is finding the path of least resistance. It is action with maximum efficiency and efficacy. And like water it is malleable and easily changeable in shape. Greatly inspired by the natural world, the Taoists observed water’s ability to work around objects and in time gradually wear them down by the forces of erosion.
When we are in the ‘flow state’ of Wu wei life becomes more effortless. Things that we desire manifest with greater ease. Synchronicities abound and it can sometimes appear quite comical the way in which an obvious path is illuminated forward. This is what it means to be in alignment with your will. This is what can occur when we choose freedom over the dictates of culture.
From my own personal experience, one clue that you are entering the flow state is the repetition of phrases or ideas. This reoccurrence seems to me to be a sure sign that you are heading in a positive direction. Recently I kept stumbling across the phrase “life of the mind”. A phrase repeated in the film Barton Fink. Never previously had I encountered this phrase and then, all of a sudden, it was everywhere. I see these little coincidences as signposts that say “this way to the flow state.”
Embracing one’s freedom is essential to a happy life. To live in accordance with one’s own will is what informs us of our destiny. To live in anything other than freedom is to be out of alignment with the good. But it takes courage to choose freedom for the path will always involve a degree of hardship. However if it is freedom that you desire, then the price is always worth it.
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Everyone who took the covid vaccine signalled at what point they could be bought by the state. It's not my opinion, it's the truth. I know someone who took it because they needed to maintain court-approved access to their child, and as condition of that access, had to be employed. The third jab nearly killed them. That was the point at which they could be bought. This is where we are in Western Australia.
Excellent! I would add for those who don't choose liberty for themselves... they have no right to demand that their choice to live in bondage be implemented on people who do choose freedom. That seems to be a real problem in today's society. My liberty doesn't end where someone else's fear/compliance/choice begins.