Dorina Dian
Freedom can mean different things to different people; we can approach the concept from the whole universe through a planet to a society made up of individuals. We might think that in the universe the planets and stars and everything is free, but in reality, gravity controls everything, and they very much depend on each other, or else the whole system would collapse in an instant. Nature and societies work the same way. So what if a society doesn’t depend on another? We can say it’s free. What if a human being doesn’t depend on others? Then they are free.
But in human life, everything we do or say has an effect on those around us, because that’s how the system works: We communicate and work and evolve together so we can go ahead. We are brought up and controlled by our parents so we can evolve, we are controlled by our teachers to evolve, then we are controlled by employers and companies so we can be helpful to society. So basically limitless freedom could never be reached, or as I have mentioned, the system would collapse. We can never be utterly free in our lives BUT we can experience small fractions of it as we go on our paths.
So how does freedom work within the borders of our society? Equality before the law is freedom, religious equality before the law is freedom, because, according to such law, we are not oppressed or controlled by others. Obviously this is not entirely true, but if in some cases we are allowed to choose, that definitely constitutes freedom. For us teenagers it is compulsory to go to school, and by that time in our lives when we are so close to maturity, it becomes more and more obvious that we are controlled and we don’t want to be. But what is hanging out with friends from school, what is reading or watching films or listening to music? For us, those could be called freedom. For adults, freedom could be much more because they are able to do so many things that we can’t, including traveling or buying things. To be able to do these kinds of things is freedom. So we fight for it all our lives. We learn and work so we can move out and start our own individual lives, with our own house and own friends and money. So we could be independent, so we could be free.
But what if we forget society and all the alarming factors that cause dependence and just look at the big picture? Because freedom could be anywhere at any moment. A girl sitting on a plane and looking out the window at the clouds could feel freedom. Birds flying high in the sky can feel freedom. Antelopes running in Africa are free. Whales hunting in the sea are free. Atoms in the air are free. Shooting stars in the sky are free. Freedom can be captured in moments, tiny or big, it all depends on how you live them. When you are happy you can feel it, and you can be happy any time.
Freedom is a hard concept to describe because it means different things to different people. But what is for sure? It’s worth fighting for it because life would be meaningless without fighting for things. Reading a book after a long day at school feels better than just reading a book. Hanging out with friends is more exciting when you have worked so hard all week, and swimming in the sea on holiday after a long year is just the best thing ever. Everything is made of freedom, we just have to find it.