From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Jun 09 2003 - 18:46:25 BST
Hi David,
>DMB asked:
>'Where and when are you most free? In what way do you actually exercise
>freedom?'
>
>Wim didn't answer:
>Seems an unanswerable question to me. 'Freedom' never comes without further
>qualifications. You should always first answer the question 'freedom from
>what?'.
>
>dmb says:
>Freedom from static patterns.
Sounds like Joni Mitchell's "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to
lose."
I think that our lack of freedom is felt most when dynamic forces intrude on
our static peace. A farmer out in the plains with no one around for miles
and all the autonomy in the world doesn't feel their freedom threatened by
the tree that is there everyday, or the sun coming up every morning, or
anything static. Even if he is living as a serf under a feudal lord, I
don't think he feels imprisoned by that, if he has always been living in
that state. And we've been through the idea of monks achieving freedom
through ritual. I think a person only feels his freedom threatened when
change is thrust upon him, some new pattern (be it inorganic, biological,
social, or intellectual) comes along and threatens his static peace. Even
emancipation from slavery does not bring freedom, it just exposes the former
slave to new sets of static patterns that he must adjust to. It forces
change on him.
So, I answer precisely the opposite: Freedom is from dynamic change.
As the swami told Peter Tork in "Head", "Choice is misery".
Johnny
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