Personal Definition of the Word Freedom - Essay Example

What is your personal definition of the word “freedom”? The term freedom is such a complex political, psychological, and philosophical term that it includes numerous interpretations. Everyone understands this abstract term according to personal views, experience, and moral values. There is inner personal freedom, and liberty as the concept in general meaning as absence of intruders and control. There is also freedom related to the interpersonal relationship. Freedom can be physical and spiritual. There exits freedom of speech, freedom of choice, freedom of religion. Despite complications in the term interpretation every person naturally understands great value of freedom, however, sometimes it is difficult to feel freedom if you did not lose it before. It is impossible to evaluate freedom of thought and speech if you live in a democratic country. To understand the concept you have to feel the limits of your freedom. I think that freedom, firstly, presumes freedom from prejudices. Racial, sexual, national prejudices make or world more hostile and less positive place. Prejudices limit the abilities of the person to evaluate the world fairly as they are in most cases based on wrong, shallow knowledge and conclusions. We all are affected by prejudices and certain biases and it is important to keep the mind “clean” of such things. Freedom form prejudices is a trait of tolerant, mature person, who understands the value of human life regardless of his race, sex, origin or age. The world history has shown numerous examples of discrimination, however, now we are free to choose what to believe. Secondly, freedom is a freedom of choice. Nevertheless, the concept “freedom of choice” of the person means two things: that we are free and that we have a choice as that. Today I have the right to choose a place to live and to study, I am able to choose a hobby and friends. I can choose which book to read and which music to listen. I believe am free from opinions of people around me. If I do not agree with the majority regarding some issues, it does not mean that I challenge someone`s opinion. Unfortunately, some freedom of choice is illusionary. We are not completely free in our choice of work, for instance, in order to fit into life we have to make money and we are doomed to choose from certain list of specialties and companies. Famous psychologist Erich Fromm studied the concept of freedom among other notions. According to Fromm (15) positive freedom consists in spontaneous activity of all complete identity of the person, it means an unconditional recognition of uniqueness of the individual. To understand spontaneity, it is enough to look at children. I like watching children playing as they act spontaneously, freely, which gives their actions this pure naturalness. Other component of spontaneity is work, which has to connect the person to the nature in the act of creation. Such freedom allows to open the personality, it is necessary to strive for such freedom. Fromm sees the future in democracy, society in which the individual, his development and happiness become the purpose and sense. Sometimes I notice that our freedom is also illusionary. The system, advertisement, government dictate us what to buy, what clothes to wear, where to go on vacation. It is important to distinguish between your own inner desires and imposed by society necessities. Forgetting that many institutions deprive us from freedom of choice can turn any person into a “free slave”, who thinks that he does what he wants when he actually follows the plan of the others. Thus, freedom of choice is a responsibility, even a certain burden. It is important to listen to your inner voice in order to live your life in your own way and not according to expectations of your parents, bosses, and presidents. Freedom of speech is one of the most important values of modern society. As we all know now we live in the era when information allows us to be the creators and participants of the historic events. Freedom of speech gives us free access to reliable information. World without the Internet is unimaginable now and due to this invention we feel free which information to read, what to believe in. Propaganda in such circumstances is poor as you can open the site of the opposite news agency and decide what to believe. Thus, freedom of speech and free access to the medias are the things which make all us free. I understand that internal freedom is more important than physical. In my opinion, freedom is inner sense of lightness connected with ability to choose, to follow the dreams, to create oneself. I think my interpretation of freedom coincides with what most people aim to achieve. When people speak about freedom as about something easy and light, they feel happiness and pleasure. True freedom always in the heart, it is a strong desire to create, to develop, to teach, and to study. For me freedom is a state of mind. The person, who has found internal freedom will not to seek the ways to change the world because he will understand that it can be changed only by changing himself. Often in our life we become dependent on circumstances, other people, money, and various issues of material world. We live for the sake of something or for the sake of someone. We go to work which we do not love every day, having forgotten about the internal being, having lost true freedom. We are unhappy as we cannot do what we want, to be engaged in pleasant activities. I think the person who is truly free must possess the following qualities. Firstly, freedom presupposes sensibleness. A free person is deeply conscious, understanding that everything in this life depends only on him and that his environment and all his life is in his hands. Secondly, freedom means responsibility for the life. When the person understands that he is the one who creates the reality he starts taking responsibility for the life in his own hands without thinking about excuses and the reasons. Freedom also means independence from a social framework, dogmas, stereotypes. The person who is free from limiting believes, from the imposed ideas of society, from opinions of people around. Personality. Free individual must have his own opinion and his own life position. To be unique, to be the personality, to have your own opinion is to be free. Here is one of freedom mottoes. It is not necessary to live life of other people, it is not necessary to live for the sake of someone or for the sake of something (families, children, home, cars, works, friends, etc.), it is necessary to live the life for the sake of life itself and the hobbies, new creations. Freedom of the manifestation and self-expression, freedom of creativity are those vital necessities, which help us to feel the beat of life. It is possible to run your own business, it is important that this business was darling and brought pleasure! Life of a free person is filled with pleasure and happiness from literally everything what he touches, from the fact that he breathes and lives. Self-sufficiency. The person who understands the essence and the principles of true freedom never imposes his way of thinking upon somebody as he simply does not need it. Unfortunately, freedom can also be interpreted in negative way. In most cases, freedom for some reason is understood as total impunity. I do not know what these people think about but in their minds freedom is similar to the Wild West where all the problems can be solved with a help of a gun. Somehow it turns out that colts will be used only against unarmed people. And whatever these owners of colts did in their imagination, all the rest apparently acted aggressively and wrong. This concept of freedom reminds a dream of a cowardly hare, eager to boss over a pack of wolves. Only this hare does not know that any wolf will not submit to the cowardly leader with a colt or without it. Moreover, it is important to remember this famous American proverb, which tells us that Colt made all people equal. I know several people who are proud of their freedom from any morals and laws. In general, this leads to bad consequences. Impunity and permissiveness are terrible because they can lead to anarchy. Unfortunately, in minds of many people the image of anarchy receives some romantic meaning. They consider it "cool", without thinking about the consequences for real life. Young people erroneously perceive anarchy as a synonym to freedom, confusing these two absolutely different concepts. But this beautiful word loses all the charm when it comes to real actions. In the world of anarchy every person does everything which comes to his/her head, ignoring and neglecting the needs of the others. As a result people lose all the rights. In anarchy and impunity people live without basic rights for their life and health, the rights for private life, the rights for movement, that is, in fact, means without any rights at all. Permissiveness appearing in minds of some politicians leads to terrible consequences for their country and the whole world in general. There are numerous historical figures of the 20th century who probably perceived freedom as impunity and permissiveness. Hitler and Stalin are the brightest examples of this position. The idea of permissiveness capturing their minds led to huge tragedy, which had carried away million lives. There is also another kind of permissiveness, moral permissiveness, which is more complicated. It is not obvious and it eats the person from within. The idea of moral permissiveness is one of the main subjects of one of my favorite novels of Oscar Wilde "The Picture of Dorian Gray". In this book it is possible to observe moral decay of the principal character that interprets the concept of freedom as total moral permissiveness and pays with his soul for it. Freedom is also can be interpreted as a release from duties and responsibilities for certain people. For such individuals freedom is a paradise where all their needs and wishes become real without any obstacles. They want to do nothing, but wish to receive everything they want. Such people do not want any commitments and avoid relationship in fear of losing their precious freedom. Their freedom in most cases turns into their slavery as they become narcissist and egoistic. Nevertheless, this type of freedom is delusive, as people have to learn how to form real relationship rather than how to survive alone (Ericsson 37). Nevertheless, for the majority of people freedom is still associated with one the most precious, valuable goals of human life. Freedom is eternal goal and great responsibility. Finding your own internal freedom and sharing it is the sense of life. Works Cited Erikson, Erik. New insights on adulthood. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Fromm, Erich. Escape from freedom. Oxford: Open Road Media, 2013. Wilde, Oscar. The Portrait of Dorian Grey. London: Bibliolis books, 2013. Read More