Freedom?

"To be entirely free, and at the same time entirely dominated by law is the eternal paradox of human life"

~Oscar Wilde

So, what then is freedom? Is it merely an illusive ideal or can it be defined practically? In the words of Kenny Lofton, "Both." 

We could all define freedom differently, but the resonating theme is that we are all chasing our own version of Utopia. My brother is perhaps the extreme to this, and sometimes gives me a good illustration of what it may have been like talking to a Nazi in 1940. His Utopia is just that, a "super-race" of the best minds, athletes, and visionaries, working together in perfect harmony, eco-friendly houses that somehow defy physics and give back more energy than they use without emitting carbon. I think you get the picture. My point is that most of us are not chasing the classical Upton Sinclair Utopia.

After watching the movie/documentary "We Live In Public" I realized that by creating an idea of Utopia we are really just attempting to control the box in which we live. I watched the subject of the documentary systematically increase the size of his "box," carefully maintaining control until it reached an uncontrollable size, at which point he would self destruct only to begin again. 

What I found most enlightening was that he was most fulfilled in life when his box remained at a small, controllable level. As his wealth and fame grows throughout the movie his fulfillment from it decrease.

This concept is perhaps best illustrated in the rise and fall of empires as the process is almost in slow motion allowing us to analyze it easier. Every Empire has begun with a community of diverse, smaller entities working together with commonality. As the community becomes more systematic, and the parts become indistinguishable the Empire immediately begins to decline. While it's greatness may carry over for a time, it inevitably becomes too large to control until it crumbles from within.

Think of it this way, if you are holding 45lbs, and you start adding 5lbs at a time. Eventually, that weight is going to be too heavy for you to hold. Let's say at 95lbs you give in. Are you likely to drop all 95lbs, or are you just going to drop the last 5lbs and keep holding the other 90lbs? Obviously, you are going to drop it all. You have been overwhelmed.

So, if I'm telling you the only way to be fulfilled is to shrink your box you're probably wondering, how some people can be happy with Millions of dollars while others are miserable? It's this simple, they are allowing the money to work for them; not trying to control it. They are living in a community, rather than an empire, where everyone and everything is equally and vitally important. 

You are only able to control your own contribution within the community, not the overall direction of the community. We are often mislead when we only see the finished product, and are naturally led to think that the skin is holding everything together. Its what we see, and it is in contact with every part of the body. It's a perfectly logical conclusion, until you have the opportunity to look inside. Now you can see that is the smaller parts working together to support the skin. 

Life is a fluid body in which our position is never certain. Freedom then, is not our ability to control the body, but rather our ability to flow through it.

"As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as in being able to remake  ourselves."

~Gandhi