Heard the word "freedom" quite a bit yesterday. Interested in what comes to mind when you hear the word "freedom". Personally i think of freedom as something we all are born with, lose (at least part of the time) during our conditioning (parents, society, school, friends etc.) and eventually get back when this body stops functioning. The fact that it is illegal in many parts of the workd to explore our conciousness, begs the debate: how does one become truly free in this day in age?

"Anarchy burger, hold the government"

The Vandals


Aloha kā kōu

If it comes to liberty, I prefer negative liberty, over positive liberty.

For me freedom is like "free of choice", but with high responsibility for you choices, either they're bad, or good.

Norms in society determine the law - if the standards are tightened, this freedom can be limited! Just look at the 19th century capitalism in Europe, which was born from Protestantism elements, norms, not Catholicism norms. The Protestant work ethic and standards, savings (conservative ethos) contributed to the shape of the nineteenth capitalism.


I don't think democracy is overall best for freedom, in most cases people are lazy and they're want choose safety over liberty.

we're pretty much free to choose whatever the {insert gov't agency acronym} approves for consumption, and that's typically dictated by oligarchies.

I perceive freedom as an essence that already is or exists. A kind of personal, whole freedom with the ability to see beyond illusion, conditioning and fear. The state of one.

I've always thought that true freedom only exists on the inside, in that you are free to think and feel whatever you choose, but I really wonder if that's the case. We are slaves to the impressions of life and to biological instincts. If I were truly free, I would choose to have no sex drive, but alas, it is something that I have no choice but to accept. I would choose to love every human being equally and unconditionally without exception, but it seems to be much harder than it sounds. Some here might say that it is truly a choice, but the fact remains that it is a struggle. The only freedom that I have appears to be freedom of physically manipulating my body, but even that can be hindered by the physical constraints of a pair of handcuffs or a jail cell.

So maybe the only real freedom is the freedom to accept that we have no freedom. But I would prefer not to accept that.

So where does that leave me?

Sigh

When I think of freedom I'm usually disgusted by the illusion of it here in the United States. You can be arrested for collecting rainwater, for drinking raw milk, or for possessing a wild plant.

We are so not free, that the word, especially in this context, just annoys me.

For me, true freedom is only available inside your mind.

Although the outside world imposes material limits on our freedom, that has always been the case. First, way back in the day and for eons before it, we struggled to survive; all energy went toward scrounging food and not getting killed. Then came the moment in history when we could start paying alpha male leaders for some modicum of security, but this always comes at a price in terms of what freedoms the alpha males in question are OK with.

So, in accepting that these impositions on our material freedom are an inevitable outcome of our Darwinian origins, what real freedoms do we have left? The big one is cognitive freedom: to be able to think, feel and believe as one chooses. In the US this would seem to be a logical side effect of the freedom of speech, but nowhere in our constitution is any provision about cognitive liberty expressly stated. If it were, we would have a lot more to work with in terms of changing the laws regarding entheogen use.

But all that aside, there is a much more important aspect of freedom: what burdens do we each personally carry that limit what we can do? Personal hangups and insecurities can be a lot more limiting than laws. If you are very interested in pursuing something you believe is worthwhile, but somehow have become convinced that you don't have what it takes, then you are letting a personal hangup have very real limiting effects on your freedom to do as you wish. I think that in reality, finding and conquering these self-imposed shackles is going to buy you more freedom than any campaign to make right the injustices of the world. Although we certainly need people to play that role as well.