Freedom

To me, freedom derives from choices; choices to do or be one thing over the other. I think I am free now. Yet, I sleep a little too late and wake up a little too early. My time is a little too short, my body is a little too tired, and my wallet is a little too thin for a vacation. So, I am a little less humane and a little too mechanistic than ‘free’ human beings. 

Then, I asked myself, “Am I a slave?”

From all the books that I have read, all teachers that I have learned from, and all things that I have experienced, I think, freedom comes from abundance or hard work—which is the opposite of freedom itself. 

In college, the students are freer than the ones in high school. They are free to go to class or not, to do assignment or not, and to study or not (without being treated as running away criminals). They have choices whether to be lazy or not. That is freedom. However, at the last semester, they have to sacrifice their sleep to study, they have to understand the lesson if they wanted to pass the subject. That is absolutely the opposite of freedom.

Workers have a choice to quit their job and claim their freedom to sleep, read, hang out, travel, and do anything they want for the rest of their life. That is freedom. For a little while, they will run out of money. Then, they will be desperately in need for a job. That is not freedom.

People are free to smoke, to do drugs, to eat junk food and to sit on a couch all the time. That is freedom until they were diagnosed with severe illness. Then, they are deprived from all of those things that they like. In fact, they have to do certain exercises or therapies and have daily or weekly check up with a doctor. 

Are people free to choose whom to marry or they have no other choices since no one else (good enough) wants them so that they choose the least bad candidate?

It is from intelligence and discipline you can choose whether to sleep or hang out in final weeks of the semester. 

It is from wealth you can choose sleeping or travelling at any given day. 

It is from good health you can choose to eat junk food or sweets. 

It is from a high quality life you can choose a high quality person to marry—since a low quality person can only attract high quality person on movies.

We can never be free. There are visible and invisible strings that bind us, but some are freer than others.

A crippled bird cannot walk, a broken-winged bird cannot fly, a caged bird can fly a little, and other birds can fly only in a certain height. Some birds can fly higher than other birds but all birds cannot fly high enough to go beyond the Earth's atmosphere.

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This idea came to me when I was fueling my gas. I always choose the gas station that is on my left side (so that I do not have to cross) and less long-queued, at least 2 or 3 bikes queuing. I always had enough gas so that I could skip and choose.  Yet, at that time I was running out of gas. Then I saw a gas station that was on my right side and there were about 15 bikes queuing. I did not have any choice.