What Does ‘Freedom’ Mean to You?

Credit: the author

Stop, settle for a moment. Freedom. It’s one of the most evocative, most frequent words in political rhetoric, in advertising and in arguments with your personal teenagers or partner.

Do you feel free right now? When did you feel the most free? The least?

• Is it only the lack of oppression?
• How much freedom do you want? Is there such a thing as too much?
• Is freedom a greater value than say, love, truth or hope, or justice? And how does freedom intersect with those important values?
• Is freedom different to choice?
• Do you mind the narrowing of choices in some circumstances but not others?
• What prices have you paid for a sense of freedom?
• How does the sense of freedom vary between groups of people of different ages, genders, political parties and cultures that make up this country, the ‘Land of the Free’?
• How does the sense of freedom vary between individuals, regardless of their group affiliation?
• How much control do you have over your own sense of freedom?

Aargh, so many questions. But before my brain explodes and I get lost down a rabbit hole of research, I’m going to pull it back to the personal. Me. When do I feel free? For you, maybe take a moment and write your thoughts to any of these questions in the comments. It would be so interesting to hear from you!

For me, I feel oppressed when I have to do something that I find unjust, unkind or ineffective/time-wasting. I don’t mind obeying traffic laws. I see the point and I fancy myself a basically decent person. But I sure as hell resented poorly thought-out dictates raining down from the school district office and/or the state telling me I had to give tests I didn’t agree with, or whatever. Stuff I thought was bad for my students, or extra work for no good reason. I don’t like being bossed around, period. And really, who does?

I almost became a 1950s wife, serving meals with a side of stone-cold resentment. Feeling oppressed ate away the love that had me take it on in the first place.

I have more freedom now than I have ever had in my life. No teenager at home, no partner to consider. Recently retired. I have the freedom to choose what to do with my day, my week, my year. Enviable, right? I am genuinely grateful and yet… I find it oddly stressful. Turns out that too much choice leaves me feeling a little useless, cast aside and aimless. As soon as a big project appears, I’m happy to trade off relevance and purpose for that freedom. Choosing the purpose I really want to address, that’s the more fundamental freedom. I suppose the freedom I most value is the ability to direct my own life’s purpose.

I hate being oppressed by fear, and I allow that to happen too often. Not feeling safe to walk alone at night, being afraid of break-ins, landslides and wildfire. Being afraid of climate change causing the collapse of civil society. Reasonable fears in California. I’m also afraid of less reasonable things: not being good enough, young enough or talented enough. And I hate to say it, the fear of getting fat, poor and old. Of being judged. Attitudes I could change although seriously, how do more evolved folks do that?

All those fears cut into my sense of freedom. Some of them are deliberately marketed to my exact demographic. Perhaps to keep us down. Better a market for beauty products than retiree activists with time on their hands and no fear of jail. (No kids to get back to, no job to be fired from… Just sayin’.) But intentional or not, the head space for calorie counting is space that’s not thinking about your life’s purpose — I appreciate Emma Thompson for pointing that out so vividly.

So thinking about it, fear opposes freedom. FDR was at least partially right: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” It’s ironic that the Republican playbook is mostly fear-based while all the while promoting themselves as the party of freedom.

Although being afraid can be pretty adaptive — I loved the signs near a waterfall plunge pool: “Listen to that nervous feeling. Don’t jump off the bridge.” and “Fear is smarter than you — hidden rocks below the surface.” Like, don’t have ‘Here, hold my beer’ be your last words.

Everyone will have different pain points or compromises between fear and freedom, of course. On the whole though, I imagine most people feel that justified limits on freedom are okay — along the lines of “The freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.”

What the most prized kinds of freedom will vary wildly — from the right to own guns, to the right to feel safe in your bed, or the freedom from having to scramble for your next meal. Or all of those. Once the basics of the Maslow’s needs hierarchy are met — food, warmth, shelter and safety — then the structure of a society and justice will be of more interest. Because seriously, would the danger of chaos and crime be worth the freedom of the old Wild West? The rise of Putin becomes more understandable set against the dangerous chaos after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Freedom can be in tension with community and connection. Community and secure connection require some boundaries and rules. Hairless, tasty apes like us did better in groups — someone to take turns watching for wild animals and tending the fire overnight. Division of labor to ensure our particularly helpless babies can be cared for and protected over a ridiculously long childhood (compared to the rest of the animal kingdom). But drudgery entered into with clear, chosen purpose is not really perceived as drudgery.

Rutger Bregman makes a compelling argument for this connected and compassionate view of human nature in his book ‘Humankind — A Hopeful History’. Although “Nature red in tooth and claw” makes much better TV, and much better stories from Hansel and Gretel and King Lear on up through Lord of the Rings and retellings of the much wilder west than it actually seems to have been. A good story doesn’t make it true, and as Bregner points out, people sitting about being nice to each other and happy families…. Right. Not binging that series. Well. Except for Ted Lasso, obviously.

Connection and love? I guess that love is the strongest form of connection and it’s absence, the ultimate loneliness. Love absolutely impacts freedom and it’s a clipping of wings that most people allow, accept and struggle with as the rewards of relationships ebb and flow. Kahlil Gibran encapsulates this tension best I think “Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”

And yet, there is still something incredibly compelling about the idea of freedom. I moved away from what felt like stifling conventions of Britain, to the US specifically for that feeling of freedom. A place where I felt I could choose other careers rather than being stuck forever in the classroom. Where people were a bit more direct. In the end, I chose to stay in the classroom. For 35 years. In middle school. But I felt I had a choice over here. The reality, probably no difference.

Freedom and innovation are closely tied together. Freedom and creativity too. STEM, STEAM with the A for Art, even better. Although honestly, how do you feel when you have some kind of professional development and the smug workshop leader tells you to ‘be creative’. Scary, right? Still the idea that you just might have the next, brilliant idea that will lead you to starting a company to make millions AND make the world a better place, along the lines of TED talks. It’s a tempting aspiration.

The idea of freedom has paved the road to so many unintentional bad outcomes though. The PlayPump fiasco comes to mind.

The idea of freedom for a few, rich and influential people and corporations has allowed awful things to happen to unseen others, to unseen ecosystems. The freedom to pollute water ways, cut down trees, own assault weapons, the list goes on and on. The freedom of an elite imposing their view of how others should live their lives. Including wokeness. Including invasion, colonization and enslavement.

People willingly dying to defend their country, to gain a felt freedom from oppression, fighting for self governance and self determination. It’s a powerful call, cloaked in glory, Dulce et decorum est, Pro patria mori. Is it an old lie? Would you? Would I? I so hope I would be brave enough, even though I’m realizing freedom is more an idea than a reality.

So where are you on this idea of freedom? Do you feel free in your life? What’s getting in your way? Freedom and zest, freedom goes hand in hand with joy, inspiration and a satisfying life. What can we do to increase a freedom that enhances our own lives, and that of those around us? Discuss. (In the comments. No grades. Retired :-)