What is Freedom

What is Freedom?

There are many different definitions of freedom floating around. They contradict each other, and they all have their limits. Worse, there are some actual experiences of freedom that don’t fit any of the definitions and at least on their face contradict each other.

So I am going to propose a new definition.

A Mexican-American kid on a temporary work assignment in our ward spoke about freedom last Sunday. He apparently had some real interest in the subject of free agency and freedom on his mission to the Midwest and talked with various Saints there about it, and gleamed some interesting insights. He concluded that for him freedom was freedom to become (like Christ).

That struck me profoundly and instead of listening to the remainder of his talk as he moved on to other subjects, I mulled over freedom.

Let’s talk about the experience first.  Freedom is first and foremost something we know from the inside.   I have had real felt experiences of freedom and so have you.

Overcoming an obstacle: There’s something I’m trying to do and there’s something blocking me. When I overcome it, I feel liberated. It’s an internal exhilaration and also a lifting of a weight. This can be very big things (like, dunno, you’re in prison and get out) or it can be small things—the construction on your quick route to the grocery store finally finishes so you can go there directly instead of having to beat around the detours. It can involve something that from the outside view appears to constrain your options. “He/she agreed that we’re a couple now!” It can be an obstacle to something specific you are trying to do—“finally I got the @##$^%#$ permit”—or it can be a kind of general restraint that limited you over all, especially when it took away capabilities that you are used to having—“at last I’m over this sickness”. The feeling is the same.

Flow. When you are doing something you are very good at and enjoy and you get into that flow, you have that same experience of freedom. Even though you are as far from actually making choices as you ever can be, in that state everything is like direct experience without indecision. You certainly do make choices but you don’t experience yourself making choices, there is no gap, no reflection, you just do. Buried way back in my past I had a tiny bit of experience as riot police and it was amazing. Because of it, I am convinced that a Greek hoplite, say, when advancing shield to shield against the foe, reached an experience of peak freedom even though he had no choices at all, even though every move had to be constrained in just one exact way to fit the pattern of the whole, or else die. We know from experience that glory is freedom. We know from experience that victory is freedom. When Ephraim is crowned with his blessings in Zion and Jesus descends in his chariot of fire, that is freedom. We could certainly come up with an argument to which that is the conclusion. But we shouldn’t. Instead, we should take that as a fact from which we build up our understanding of freedom.

Carefree. Those moments when you are feeling good and have no immediate worries or concerns, you have nothing to do and nothing you do matters that much and everything you do matters just because you are doing it. That also feels like freedom.

More tomorrow.