Human Freedom

All of us strive for freedom in one way or another. For some, this aspiration is almost a motivating factor, almost an end in itself of all life. This notion is on the list of basic values of almost any person.

But in fact, freedom is an illusion. There is no such thing as complete, or ideal, absolute freedom or independence. Let's turn to Wikipedia so that we have a unified initial interpretation of this concept.

"Freedom is the state of the subject in which he is the determining cause of his actions, that is, they are not directly conditioned by other factors, including natural, social, interpersonal-communicative, and individual-generational factors."

To translate this into simpler language, freedom is when you decide for yourself whether or not to do something, without outside influence. And notice that the vast majority's understanding of the term "freedom" is mostly about "social factors." But let's take a few elementary examples from others.

Natural. When a hurricane comes at you, you are hardly free to choose your actions. It dictates them to you.

Individual. Try to make a decision: "From now on, I'm not going to breathe. I'm sick of it." Or eating... Or sleep... Well, you get the idea.

"There is no independence in nature," as one very wise man accurately put it.

So, where is it? What to strive for. What is freedom expressed in?

In fact, I repeat, I'm talking specifically about the absence of absolute freedom. Total independence. There is no freedom. We are always dependent on something.

In that case, what is there? Here it would be appropriate to introduce the category of "degrees of freedom.

So, modern man, no matter how unfortunate it may sound to some, has only three degrees of freedom. And so each of them separately is absolute, in the sense that it is possible to strive for this absolute. Their names are Faith, Dream, and Purpose.

No one and nothing can take away from you the ability to believe in something, to dream about it, and to plan ways to achieve your goal.

That's it, you have no other freedoms. All others are highly situational.

You may argue, as I did in my time, that: "Wait a minute! What about freedom of choice? No one can take away my right to choose. And I make these choices all the time, and my entire reality is formed on the basis of them! That's what you said in the Responsibility video, isn't it? That's true, but the choice is a derivative of faith. Just think, what do you choose when you are faced with this choice? You choose what you think is right at that moment. In a second after making a choice and receiving a new result, your faith in the accuracy of the choice may be shaken, but at the moment of making it, you were guided by your faith in the rightness of the action.

But my main message today is this. My dear ones. Why do we strive for freedom? Probably in order to live our lives to the fullest. Everyone's definition of "fully" is different. For me, for example, it is to unlock and realize as much as possible the potential that was put in me at conception.

And for this we are given three tools, which no one can take away from us. Faith. A dream. Purpose. No one can do that except... ...except ourselves. Take them away from ourselves. To give them up. Limit ourselves to freedom. Voluntarily.

And the sad thing is that this is happening all over the place. Everywhere. Some make themselves one-third unfree, and some completely surrender themselves to slavery. But both are already unfree, for the absence of even one of the degrees negates achievement in the others.

Living in disbelief, you have no strength or desire to do anything, to move anywhere.

Not having a dream, you deprive yourself of a guiding star, a beacon, the meaning of action.

Without setting goals, without planning your life, if you are doing something, you are obviously not doing it yourself, and therefore you are not living your life.

Dreaming without believing, you won't lift a finger to achieve your dreams, because you don't believe they are real.

Dreaming and believing in its realization, but not making any effort to realize it through planning and executing the plan, you will remain a dreamer... And so on.

So where does the fullness of your life come from?

Perhaps it comes from the fact that you didn't know it. But now you know!

The freer we are in each of the degrees, the more whole we become as a person, as a person. And becoming a free person is a process, a labor.

Strengthen your faith, fill yourself with energy. Dream, dream big, dream of your own, of that which overwhelms you with joy and meaning. Plan how you will move toward that dream, how you will act, what you need to do to make the dream a reality.

And act with confidence!

To dream, to believe in the feasibility of that dream, and to act on it according to your plan is true freedom!