“Freedom”

Freedom is an innate right which humans have since their birth. Freedom is not something that can be
touched, seen, felt or reached. All this gives a vague idea about freedom. What exactly does freedom
mean?

Different people have different opinion, definition and thoughts about the idea of freedom. Some talk
about freedom in political sense, some talk about social freedom, some about personal independence
and some define it as religious freedom. But the fact that everyone wants to be free, holds true in all
cases.

Freedom Today, what exactly is freedom today and how does it affect us? The concept of freedom has
been fought for by many groups of people including Americans and is an ideal that is very dear to many
people's hearts. The basic word "freedom" is appealing to most cultures emotionally and is used very
often in political speech. It can be interpreted various ways because there are so many freedoms that
are available to discuss and consult. If people were not allowed basic freedoms, such as freedom of
speech, the world would be a drastically different place to live in. The problems with today are these
freedoms are taken for granted and not thought of as "obligations".

It is really a big factor in life having freedom, and yet how does one person define freedom what is
freedom? How much freedom do we have to direct our lives? Our understanding of freedom can give us
insight into what motivates us so we can direct and move our lives toward what we desire. “Man is born
free, and everywhere he is in chains.” These chains are oppressive societal rules that restrict what we
can physically do. But they are also mental chains, chains that restrict what we believe we can do. These
are the chains of social conditioning, the values society projects onto us. We feel we have no power to
move ourselves in the direction we want to go in our lives.

We may want to climb, but if society tells us “It’s crazy and dangerous,” we don’t. We’re moved away
from climbing by reacting to a conditioned societal value. If we remain unconscious, we’ll only gain
freedom if society removes the rules, or if someone removes our social conditioning. That never
happens. The removal comes from an internal shift within us. We achieve “freedom from” when we
wake up and realize we are more valuable than society’s values or our conditioning.

We also have another freedom, which is freedom to love. To be free to do something, you must be free
not to do it. We are free to love only to the extent that we aren't forced into it by guilt, shame, fear of
abandonment, or, worst of all, the interpretation of vulnerable feelings as emotional needs. No matter
how seductive "I need you," may sound in popular songs, the partner who needs you cannot freely love
you.

“Freedom to,” emerges after we’ve achieved “freedom from” society’s values and begin creating our
own. If we value climbing, then we go climbing regardless of society’s crazy and dangerous labels. We’re
moved, not by society, but by our values. This is a big step forward, but it tends to manifest itself
through our ego. We are moved toward what we experience as easy, comfortable and pleasurable, and
moved away from what we experience as hard, stressful and painful. In other words, we’re motivated
toward pleasure and away from pain. This manifests itself unconsciously as striving for end results,
which are realized after the stressful climbing experience.