[ date ] 2002/07/07 | Sunday | 02:12 PM [ author ] Alexandre Dulaunoy alex@conostix.com

First, let me apologize for the late reply. My excuse is that I've just moved from Northern California to Southern California, and I'm still getting settled. I was also trying to think of what I wanted to say.

http://ax9.org/the-binary-nature-of-freedom.html

" I love you all from the bottom of my heart, because I know what you can become, and there are two sides to this. You can be free and happy and be the director of your own life, or you can be the complete opposite. Remember that there's no such thing as "partially" free. You're either free or you're not, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either fooling you or worse -- fooling themselves. This is the binary nature of freedom. "

Can this essay extend the initial discussion around Freedom ?

In my comments at:

http://www.advogato.org/article/512.html

I mentioned that I was primarily interested in helping people gain the "capacity" to be free. This may seem like a strange concept to some of you so let me present you with a scenario:

An intellectual man goes to his friend and gives him the most logically sound arguments for freedom that he can conjure up. The friend concedes to the intellectual that he may be on to something, but he'll say something disappointing like:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, but I can't live my life like that. There's nothing I could realistically do. That's just the way of the world.

This is the way most people are -- self-defeating. Considering the state of the world we live in, it's understandable, because people who want their freedom often end up dead like Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X or Che Guevarra or Jesus Christ. (And I'm not Christian -- I just think he was a good man.) As a general rule of thumb, freedom fighters end up dying as martyrs. However, they wouldn't have had to die if they didn't have to stand alone against the world.

Take Martin Luther King Jr. for example. When you studied history, did you learn about how Martin Luther King Jr. assembled a massive following of about a quarter million people and marched on Washington D.C. where he gave a speech saying, "I Have A Dream!" What if instead of just one Martin Luther King Jr., there were 250.000 people who were just as thoughtful, passionate, and articulate as he was?

"Impossible," you say?

Well I say, "Don't defeat yourself."

I sincerely believe that each and every one of us has the potential to affect great social change. Unfortunately for the world and for our future children, much of this potential is untapped. I think I can safely say that less than 1% of the world's population realizes just how powerful they really are.

I didn't realize my own potential until a few months ago when I accidentally healed myself of 14 years of psychological pain. I had no idea the healing process could be so sudden, but I'm so glad it happened. And I'm glad I never swallowed any pills peddled by a psychiatrist. I've had many sad times in my life, but I never did go to a shrink and I never did take any medication, and I consider myself lucky for that. My cousin and my next door neighbor who are in their early teens just tell me that the drugs don't work and that the psychiatrists just pretend to listen. Damn, I'm glad I never went to them, because I found out that all the drugs in the world pale in comparison to the power of a sincere: "I love you."

When I found the power of love inside myself, my life was never the same again. I became a person who could write emails like this one and write essays like [The Binary Nature of Freedom]. You have to understand that I didn't used to be able to do this. I used to be a quiet little boy who programmed his computer and didn't want to cause any trouble. I was a coward, but no more.

I became capable of unconditional love, and this great love gives me great courage that would have been beyond my wildest imagination just a few months ago. If you find this power within yourself, you will feel free, too. When I said that freedom was binary, what I meant was that you've either discovered your true potential OR you think you are still powerless to change the world.

The truth is that no one is powerless, but they'll never teach you this in school. This is something you have to learn all by yourself and only then can you be free.

Also extend the discussion of what is control ?

Let's stop worrying for a moment about how we are being controlled from the outside, and let's focus our attention inward. We've all heard of the concept of self-control, right?

Well I'm going to tell you that everything you've ever learned about self-control is wrong. A lot of people think that self-control means doing things that you don't want to do, because you're just supposed to (but why?). A lot of people think self-control is the act of being stoic in the face of traumatic events. A lot of people think that self-control means suppressing your strongest emotions -- like boys should never cry.

This is all wrong. This is not self-control. This is self-denial.

Yet, everyone is doing it -- people are fighting against their own selves day in and day out, and it has to stop if people ever want to live freely.

To me, true self-control is achieved when the way you live coincides exactly with what you believe is right. If you ever feel like you're having to force yourself to do something, stop and think about why that's so. Really try to get to the bottom of things by being brutally honest with yourself.

I believe that as humans we all have the same basic emotional needs, and when you're not able to do something, it's usually because some emotional need is not being satisfied. So be true to yourself, or you'll never be free. Instead, you'll be your own slave driver.

The libertarians say that freedom means being able to do whatever you want to do without hurting others. However, can you ever be truly free if you can't do what you KNOW in your heart is right? Are you really able to do "whatever you want to do"?

Not if you deny yourself.

Peace and Blessings, beppu