Freedom

Freedom keeps beeping on my radar.  The word freedom popped up over the last week in several things I am reading, the news, my middle school daughter’s laments, serious adult conversations, and television commercials.  It is an emotionally charged word, much desired, and filled with promise.  Yet freedom seems a hard noun to pin down to specifics.

Freedom is defined by the Collins English Dictionary 10^th Edition online.
     1.  Personal liberty, as from slavery, bondage, serfdom, etc.
     2.  liberation or deliverance, as from confinement or bondage
     3.  the quality or state of being free, esp. to enjoy political and civil liberties
     4.  the state of being without something unpleasant or bad; exemption or
           immunity
     5.  the right or privilege of unrestricted use or access
     6.  autonomy, self-government, or independence
     7.  the power or liberty to order one’s own actions
     8.  (philosophy) the quality, esp. of the will or the individual, of not being totally
          constrained; able to choose between alternative actions in identical
          circumstances
     9.  ease or frankness of manner; candor
     10.  excessive familiarity of manner; boldness
     11.  ease and grace, as of movement; lack of effort

Hard to pin down indeed!  Eleven entries – and I intentionally chose this source because it was the most brief.  Apparently freedom does mean many things.  Freedom for each person differs, I suppose, in the thing by which they are trapped.  It can be a physical state.  It can be a political state.  It can be a mental state. 

Our very nature beckons us to be liberated from confinement.  Certainly slavery and bondage inflicted upon people by other people is deeply unjust.  But, alas, can we not also be our own captors?  The restriction I seem to be mulling today is that in which we might keep our own selves.  Acting without forethought reduces access to certain rights or privileges.  Addiction to bad habits may keep today the same locked paddock of yesterday as we repeat stale, rote actions hoping for different results.  Living stuck in yesterday or paralyzed in fear of tomorrow removes the liberation of today.  Mistaking personal freedom for the right to go willy-nilly through the world with no thought of others is a trap we lay for ourselves - shared destruction will not lead to increased freedom. 

Certainly, physical deliverance from captivity is paramount as are civil and political freedom.   But after that, who holds us back?  Who tells us we are not free to choose between available alternative actions?  Who defines our freedom? 

Her Freedom

Her freedom is not leaving and is not going

            not running, somehow knowing

she belongs to herself.

To stay or go daily is choice, ultimately a time

                will arrive when no one needs

her to simply survive.

She will recognize Pantanjali’s truth:  freedom

                rests in living so presently that

she sees no regrets.