What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes. - Marcus Tullius Cicero
That could be one possible answer, Marcus.
Most of the time we start to appreciate the greater gifts of life once they're gone.
To me health is one of these treasures. When we fall ill, we start to realize that a healthy life is pretty much everything we might ask for.
So here's my theory of personal freedom ๐๏ธ
Source: pixabay
Being free
I can't even remember when I came down with a cold the last time.
It must be years ago.
Now it happened again. I'm paralized since two days, wishing I could do a time travel and just skip these days.
There are a few things that are able to seriously harm my positive spirit and love of life.
Whenever I'm taken sick, it's as if nothing else mattered anymore.
Then I feel as if I was chained, condemned to downtime.
It's then when I especially wake up to the importance of physical health.
The ensured maintenance of physical health is my personal definition of ultimate freedom!
Freedom has become a buzzword, seemingly being one of the most desirable states of all in today's world.
According to Google there are two main definitions of freedom:
- The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.
- The state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.
But isn't freedom much more than that?
First of all, freedom means many things to many people.
In modern society's there is political and financial freedom for instance, the right to be heard, to vote, to be safe and the chance to be economically independent.
In this context freedom is merely associated to concepts such as law, taxes and security.
But what about the people that don't even live in modern structures, the people that struggle to survive on a daily basis? Would they seriously care about financial freedom?
Aren't these material goals just a shell that wraps the core idea of freedom?
We generally tend to think that once our particular freedom is achieved, all our problems will be solved. Imagine that you accomplish the financial freedom like you always defined it, but then you suddenly start suffering a heavy illness. How much value - from an overall life perspective - would this financial freedom still have?
Isn't life itself the maximum of freedom we could ever ask for?
Couldn't the pure existence and the chance to maintain one's life according to human values be an overall and universal concept of freedom?
Then any type of ethical values and moral concepts - thus any human value - would be included in the very concept of freedom.
Freedom is usually perceived as the result of an act of rebellion. It seems that freedom is hardly given but rather achieved.
Freedom never comes easy.
Probably that is due to the fact that the term 'freedom' has been shaped through history. It was celebrated as the one and only goal during times of racial segregation, opression and discrimination such as Apartheid.
And still freedom - in a sense of 'human equality' - is the ultimate dream of many nations in the world.
If the chance to live a life according to human values was our common understanding of freedom, then it would even enable us to take care of one another.
Nelson Mandela said once:
For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
I think there is nothing more to add here.
Have a great weekend, steemians! I'll be fighting the flu virus to be free again :)
Marly -
PS: Don't forget to join the #LoveFriday hosted by the great @liliana.duarte.
Original content. Quote found on geckoandfly.com and pinterest.com.
Freedom is relative to your personal history, in my opinion that is!
As I had a quite heavy past with my mom dying after being sick for a very long time when I was fifteen, losing my father to braincancer two years ago, and being an only child, with nobody (except my wife) to share the grief with...
I had psychologically a very rough time, both after my mom had died and in the period that my father was suffering very bad. Even now I have episodes where I feel pretty bad, fortunately they are getting less frequent and less bad.
Now back to freedom, when suffering from psychological issues (panic attacks, anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD,...) there is only one thing someone wishes and that is freedom of thoughts!
There is no money, prestige, fame, possesions, ... that can replace that.
There's freedom for me!
Wow, first of all thank you very much for sharing your story with us.
I'm really sorry about your heavy history - nobody should need to pass through a series of circumstances like you did. I can only imagine how hard this must have been...
However, in all of your past comments and statements you always seemed very strong and confident to me. Knowing your story that impresses me even more now.
"Freedom of thoughts..." That will keep me thinking for a while more.
Again thanks for your great comment.
Have a wonderful weekend!
I hope you understand what I mean with that...
I am planning to write someday about my history here... Because feeling bad can be a bitch, but I know one thing, it alwas gets better again. ;-)
Have a wonderful weekend...
PS: Oranges and Chicken broth do magic when you're ill
Yes I think I unterstood pretty well. Freedom of thoughts is what I achieve through surfing. In the water my mind is completely blank. There is just me and the wave...
Whenever you decide on writing about your story, drop me the link. I'd love to read it.
Will have some Vitamin C boost during the weekend, then I might be back in the water by Monday... Thank you :)
That's what I'm talking about, that Freedom Lifestyle. People were calling me nuts in 1998 when I decided that no man or system will ever tell me what to do. At 21, I quit going to college, quit my job, and started to live that internet lifestyle, pure freedom :)
YES!!! You're the boss of your life!
Great story, Charles. Thanks for sharing it here :)
Enjoy your weekend!!!
A very good article.
Full 100% and resteemed :-)
Thank you so much! I'm glad you liked it :-)
Enjoy your weekend!!!
I have learned and try to teach my kids that Freedom is the power to act and not be acted upon. This one of may definitions has helped me avoind situations where i could have been miserable. When i have not lived this way, i always come back and see that it has negatively affected me and then i have to decide to act again. Thanks @surfermarly for this post these are good reminders for me on how to be grateful how I should be moving forward.
That is a great definition, @dailydoodle! Your kids have an excellent teacher though :-)
Thanks for stopping by and leaving your valuable thoughts.
Enjoy your weekend!!!
freedom is choice and freedom is key to life. for me its everything and anything, anyone that tells me I cant do something my response to them is "your not the boss of me!"
my life my freedom, take that away and Im nothing
This is a powerful statement, @nabes! Thank you!!!
I do have a boss in my job, so I can't act like that all the time - but he's my father at the same time, so it's a pleasure to follow him :-)
Enjoy your weekend!
thats even beter thou, I mean you can tell him to shove it, if he's being an ass :P
A Great post and I do love that Nelson Mandela Quote to me that is one of the most profound quotes about freedom
maybe slightly off track and maybe not I think freedom can have a totally different meaning depending on where one is and their circumstances, I have travelled a lot and seen that first hand this, what a person in a country recovering from Warfare or Genocide considers as freedom will be totally different from people in first world countries, but that doesn't make one freedom and one not its just a matter of perspective.
I think a big key is to strive to live within your own boundaries strive for your goals but always ensuring by achieving your freedom you are not hindering someone else's freedom
I hope you get over the cold soon it does slow one down so much when they are feeling Ill
Absolutely! I guess the basis is life, the pure existence according to human values. And then - if we're lucky enough - we might be able to add something more.
Oh well it's just a cold and it will pass, however I hate to get slowed down :-)
Thanks for stopping by and leaving your valuable thoughts!
Have a great weekend :)
Always a pleasure to visit and read your posts :)
You to have a great weekend
Freedom is everything. Thanks for this post!
Thank YOU for reading and commenting :-) Have a great weekend!
Nice post @surfermarly, i also like to mentioned that there is no genuine freedom on the planet. The freedom we say is exactly what we might want to have or need to do. Indeed, We live in a world that made by rules,limits,law and arrange. Now and again they influence us to feel unfree. In any case, what we can't characterize is that on the off chance that we don't have them,our world will turn into a wreck. Human instinct is insidious. You can picture what world will be if everybody can do all that they need.
So I think the genuine freedom just exist in individuals' inward world. At the point when our soul is free, we are free. thanks for sharing
That's a beautiful point of view, @adnanrabbani! It definitely has much to do with the 'feeling of being free', independently of someone else from the outside would or wouldn't consider our situation satisfying. Freedom is a very particular and individual concept.
Thanks for your valuable addings, I appreciated the read!
True freedom begins in our head, obviously also that being healthy is an essential condition to be able to enjoy freedom. Nice post.Resteemed
meep
It's the second time that someone mentions that here. Before writing the article I hadn't thought too much about that idea. But yes... it's true. Everything starts with us, inside of us.
Thank you!!
Freedom is a complicated matter... I don't know if I could strictly define it for myself...
It defininitely is...
Te curras mucho tus post muy bueno upvote ;)
Lo intento, jeje. Muchas gracias por tu comentario y voto!
Disfruta de tu fin de semana :-)
Yes health is the foundation
Great post!
Thank you!
nice article @surfermarly
Great post.
You and the flu virus can be free together.
Haha, no I won't go with that virus anywhere :-D
stay strong @surfermarly.. lovely post
Yeah I will :-) Thank you!!
Upvoted, great post again, looking into my own freedom again by planning a trip again, struggle with the 9-5 grind here in Amsterdam.
Yesterday I posted for Sint Maarten, will donate for hurricane relief.
https://steemit.com/travel/@heyitshaas/help-help-sint-maarten-hurricane-disaster-upvote-and-i-will-donate
Have a look, thanks.
Keep your blogs comming
Only free people can be happy.
That's true!
Hope you get better soon!
Sure!
Very nice post @surfermarly ...Freedom...blessings
Upvote and resteem ๐@surfermarly
Nice Post.
It's the second time that someone mentions that here. Before writing the article I hadn't thought too much about that idea. But yes... it's true. Everything starts with us, inside of us.
Thank you!!
This post received a 3% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @lichtblick! For more information, click here!
thanks @surfermarly, as you describe on the free and freedom topics. now a days people are more likely to be that whats they say is still belief in it and getting its closer helps to rise their confidence.
Great post!
For me freedom is the act of being, and the way my mind reacts to it.
I will never be able to be free in the physical world I reside in, because I will never be able to control it fully (I'm barely exerting any control over it). And suppose I would be able to do it, I would still be bound to my human condition.
So freedom in the sense that no circumstance would exert any control over me is impossible for me. But I can have complete control over one thing only - my mind - the way I think, as Epicur stated a few thousand years ago in a more beautiful way probably.
And that too seems like a difficult task at the moment. Because my mind seems to have a mind of its own.
I'm speculating that freedom might be a gradual ocurrence, and enlightment, as described in Buddhist teachings, might be complete freedom. Who knows, who knows. I do not know...
Anyways,
I wish you to get well and rejoice your freedom!
When I dance, I create movement. It's something I made up and I did it on my own.
When the music comes, I listen and combine them with my movements.
It creates a feeling like no other.
Freedom to me is a feeling I know nothing or no one can ever take away from me.
I dance because I love it and what propelled the love was my father's death when I was 20.
Some things and some people in life get taken away and you can't understand it.
But if you have own passion, you can get that freedom and some form of power at least.
Nice post @surfermarly
Oh, dear,
I wish you had had one of my colloidal silver generator machines to help you stay free of a cold! :O
The other highly recommended remedies in my kit are zinc acetate lozenges, and also something that used to be called "Flu-Ban" but now has some other strange name... but if you google Flu-Ban you should find it.
Always keep those three things on hand - colloidal silver, zinc acetate lozenges, and Flu-Ban!
Be well! Hugs!
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