So, I received a few comments about the How's your freedom thing, which I find really interesting and wanted to respond to. I've got a few different responses, so they'll be a few blogs. And at the bottom of this blog is the comment, for reference.
First of all, as I read it, the general point of the comment is that I am equating freedom with happiness, and that to obtain the kind of freedom that I'm talking about requires significant hardship and difficulty. (correct me if I'm wrong).
The first question that comes to mind to me is how do you propose to find happiness if you don't have the ability to find for yourself what you believe or think? Buying into someone else's ideas of how you should live your life sounds like a situation that would make finding out what you want pretty much impossible, almost by definition. If someone else says you need to become an accountant and in your heart of heart you want to work on cars, then if you never follow your own path I don't see how you could ever be happy. And if you never even explore the option, I don't see how you could ever even find out what makes you happy in the first place. Is ignorance really bliss? Or does it just mean living ok enough and not knowing the difference?
Nobody ever said finding out what you care about is easy. And probably, the only way to really do it requires some sacrifice- if it doesn't take effort, will you really be able to appreciate it?
Now, that being said, the whole point of that other blog was that the way our society is built, the set-up is designed to make this path even harder on us. If the structure says follow one of our long list of pre-designed options for life, and we will make things easy, then by definition it's saying try anything else and you're on your own. Can you even imagine what it would be like if society was structured to encourage people to find themselves as opposed to following along. If, to go along with the skiing metaphor, we were provided with universal health care for our falls instead of having to buy our insurance from some insurance company whose sole interest is making money off us?
Look, what it really comes down to is this- what's the purpose of the time you have on this earth? You're going to die, it's not going to be that long from now, in the grand scheme of things, so what are you going to do? And it may be easier to be safe, to take the given road, follow someone else's path, to accept lowest common-denominator happiness. But is it really worth your time? If you only have one chance at all this crap, is it worth spending it on mild?
Well, maybe. But don't you think you should know for yourself? Some people are probably happier safer, and some are probably happier pushing themselves, but neither side will ever know where they fall if they don't take the time to figure it out. It's a lot easier to come back to safe from pushing yourself than to take the step out in the first place.
And there isn't any other way to do it. There is no road map. You built your own as you go. You stumble, you fall, you get up, you learn, you get one step closer to understanding yourself. That's how it's done. It's how we learn to walk when we're babies. In the end, it's the way we really learn anything. And if you want to ensure that you never fall, you must never try to walk. And I don't really want to live in a crib for my entire life.
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What you seem to be talking about should be distinguished from Happiness. True FREEDOM might be attained by making conscious choices, through volitions that give ownership over these choices, but that doesn't mean it leads to happiness.
There is a lot of pain and sacrifice that comes with the kind of Freedom you're talking about. The cost of this has tall shadows. And it becomes hard to see straight. Then you have to make more choices. More burdens just to hold onto this Freedom.
There's a steep price to pay to get into this wintery country club of yours. Though its not an exclusive membership, it might as well be. Navigating down these chutes and slopes, the gear, and even the insurance premium one should have if they fall and break their legs going off a jump. Most don't have all of this and you might argue most should not. What happens when there's no medi-vac to chopper your broken self home?
You sound crazy. Just not stupid. That's your problem. You lead people up a mountain, tell them to choose their path down and stick with it. The difference is you have a map. Most peopled don't. And nowhere around your blog do I see a triple black diamond warning sign: Experts Only. Go down at your own risk.
Me, I choose to take the ski-lift back down to the lodge, drink my hot cocoa and hit on some blonde ski-bunnies.