A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.
- Arthur Schopenhauer
In a shoal of fish, each fish tries to do two things. First it tries to get to the centre of the shoal and secondly it tries to replicate the behaviour of the fish next to it. It provides a sense of security to each individual fish.
Human beings in a society generally behave in the same way. So an individual in a community sacrifices his or her individuality to fit in and acquire a sense of security. This approach is pretty good for animals and animal expectations. Banded together a group is physically stronger than the individual members. But what about the intellectual, and spiritual expectations of individual humans?
If the individual fails to comply to the guidelines laid out by leaders in society, then the members of the society isolate and drive out the non conformist from within their midst.
People everywhere are seeking to be free from others. A society is free only when individuals within it are free. Unfortunately the vast majority of humanity has willingly submitted to others, the political, spiritual and intellectual aspects of their lives.
The reason this has happened is that they do not know what to do with their freedom
Try this and ask yourself,
'If I am free, then what do I do with my freedom?'
If you are baffled to discover that you have no satisfactory answer, maybe its time to start questioning some of the assumptions you have made about your life.
No comments:
Post a Comment