Freedom

We often hear young people say, “I want to be free to do anything I want to do.” But, can one do anything he wants to do or to be? Obviously, one cannot wish to fly. We may invent a flying machine, but we ourselves cannot fly. Also, we cannot be free of problems. Being alive and human is to have problems. Even a professional bum has his or her own problems. We can try to deny that we have problems. But, in the end, these problems will just become bigger problems.

Perhaps, there is another meaning to “be free to do anything I want to do.” For example, I want to be free to take illegal drugs; or, I want to kill a human being; or, I want to satisfy my sexual desires. But is one free to choose or not to choose to take illegal drugs? At first, one has the choice to take it. But, once one has been hooked to it, then really, one becomes dependent on it. One becomes addicted to it. There is no freedom in being attached to them.

Out of anger, I want to kill a human being. If I act out of anger, am I free? Anger drives me to kill. If anger drives me to kill, then I am not free. Similarly, I may be able to choose my sex partner. But, it seems that I cannot free myself from my sexual hunger.

What about a prisoner who is sentenced to life-imprisonment for the murder he had committed many years ago? Is he free? Or, can he be free? At first sight, we may think that he is not free for the simple fact that he is confined to the prison cell for the rest of his life. In other words, he does not possess physical freedom: he cannot physically liberate himself from the prison cell. Just like the addict, the killer, and the sex-starved individual, the prisoner is chained to his compulsion.

Aside from being confined in the cell, the prisoner is confined to another kind of a cell. He desires to escape from the cell. He wishes for an escape everyday and every night. And the more he wishes, the more he becomes depressed and angry.

How can he, and other like himself, be set free while being confined in his cell for the rest of his life? What can he be free from?

There is another kind of freedom. It is a freedom from being attached to things in general. For example, I may not have any control over what the others think of me. Nevertheless, I have control over what I think the others may think of me. Let me give you another example: people grow old. That is natural. But, if I do not accept the fact that I will one day look like my grandfather, old with a skin like dried fish, then my desire to stay younger for a very long time, will imprison me. The desire to control things that are beyond my control will only give me more heartache. The desire to change the nature of things is like a boa constrictor: it squeezes me so tightly that I cannot move freely. These desires snatch my freedom away from me. Being free, therefore, is not about doing whatever one wants to do. Being free is about self-control, that is, to have control over one’s desires.

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