A World of Freedom

What does it mean to be a person? What does it mean to be an individual? We've all at one point or another wrestled with questions like these, we've been asking them since we realized we could think. If you haven't asked them yet, don't worry, you will. It seems everywhere we look someone else is trying to answer for us with never ending inspirational quotes, movies, posts, reels, videos, blogs, radio broadcasts, podcasts, and books. We struggle to sift through it all and absorb what we really need to absorb, and maybe sometimes we forget that we don't have to absorb everyone else's answer.

When we were kids, we had to learn what it meant to be autonomous within boudaries set by our parents. Middle school and high school bring mixed emotions and memories of fun, hormones, friends, and struggling to relate to our parents as we grew into our own selves while still being under their authority. Eighteen saw us thrust into a new world of responsibilities, unfettered, free. It didn't take us long to realize freedom has a cost: time, money, and responsibilities and while some of us were keenly aware of these costs already, some of us already had them.

Whatever our backgrounds, families, home towns or countries, there is something in us from toddlerhood that longs to have freedom. My two-year-old is quite content to roam around on lazy weekends in a t-shirt and his diaper, drinking his juice in pure bliss, ignorant of the struggles his mom faces as she writes. For all the legal freedoms in western countries, there are so many things that trap us and keep us from enjoying the free country that so many long for. A strange dichotomy exists: a free country with only moral limitations tempered with knowledge that I cannot explore this free country or pursue careers that bring fulfillment without a cost too high to disregard.

Others experience a similar trap, a free country with no cost too high that is tempered with knowledge that being their own individual person costs them the person they love. What use is freedom if you have no true escape? What use is freedom when you are hounded by calls of "where are you" or "who are you with," or "when are you coming home?" What use is freedom when our devices that geo-locate us for safety are abused? What use is freedom when we are punished for enjoying it?

Still others live in places where they truly have no freedom; it is not a partner that dictates movement but a governmental body. Where it is not merely phone calls, it is weapons drawn and armed forces and fences that keep people in someone else's idea of where they should be.

We are all of us created for freedom, and it is why the greatest atrocities of history are when one person or people take the freedoms of another. Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that we are given "...certain and unalienable rights by our Creator, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." As students of democracy and philosohpy, our founding fathers created a unique system of democracy, yet it was still tainted with thier own worldviews. Even in their ideal system, it still only provided true freedom for one group of people and left others at the mercy of the truly free. The 19th century finally saw the physical liberation of the slave, and the 20th century saw the legal liberation of women and the social liberation of communities of color.

Freedom has always been sought for in all races, places, factions, and boundary lines. We humans crave it but temper it with the realization that someone else's freedom may mean a loss of power on the part of ourselves or another and we fight for it a little less. We are drawn to the vastness of the skies, the wonder of the ocean, the boundlessness of birds because we crave the space they have to move and explore things without the limitations of gravity, oxygen and resources. We all crave it, we all fight for it in our own way. The necessity of freedom has given way to so many of the world's greatest inventions.

What is freedom then? To me, freedom is the ability to live and move without the restrictions of emotional punishment, the ability to speak my thoughts without punishment or fear or brainwashing, but rather the respect of polishing my thoughts and opinions for the good of those around me. Freedom is knowing I can raise my children in security rather than fear, where they have play rooms instead of bunkers. Freedom is being able to pursue things that use my gifts, strengths and experiences without fear of losing the things I've worked for and love. Freedom is dreaming and actually being able to pursue that dream.

Where fear prevails, freedom is choked out. If you look at a given people group, look at what is feared. Fears will tell you where your ruling body stands on freedom. A truly free country means a government with simple power, a fair and just system that does not prioritize one over the other, and wealth is not equated with intrinsic value. Freedom does not forget what makes us all equal: we are all human, we all have limited time on this earth. Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." I believe the same principle applies to freedom; threats to freedom anywhere are threats to freedom everywhere, whether freedom is fought for to be maintained or fought for to be gained. We may live in different countries, but we all make up humanity. We all deserve to breathe free.