What is freedom?

[Curiosity]

Dear China

I have enjoyed your thoughts, your challenges, your intellect on these forums - especially here in this special place where you have given all of our brains a workout with your paradoxes and conundrums.

Dear man - keep up your wonderful work - best to you and your loved ones and may you always enjoy
nirvana and serenity throughout your days.

Curio

 

[china]

Dear Curio, Thanks for the wishes and like Dexter says ....."they are returned tenth fold".
China .
Ps, I find that every post or thread,wether written or read ,is a learning experience and hope that all of us will take it as such .

 

[Curiosity]

China

I see you as a pebble thrown into a pond - the ripples spread outward reaching many. Stay well and happy my friend.

 

[china]

Curiosity
I see you as a pebble thrown into a pond - the ripples spread outward reaching many. Stay well and happy my friend.

 

[humanbeing]

China : Name One ,and then phone Saddam Hussein to tell him all abut it ;He 'll be thrilled.

If it was one of your conundrums, I didn't get it. If it was a joke, it wasn't funny.

China, there are so obviously (to me) a lot of good things to be found within the society surrounding us. You gotta try pretty hard to make something positive out of starvation and the cold, which are two things that will likely be encountered when one removes themselves from the rest of society. At least with society, the potential is there to avoid such things, but on your own, you are most definitely screwed. We are social creatures, and for a good reason. And beyond just that, if you love people, there is another good reason since society is filled with em.

 

[the caracal kid]

there is a great deal to be found in starvation and cold, humanbeing.

It is in finding our own limits, and pushing them, that we can begin to find ourselves.

If we always sit comfortably in our cozy realm of safety, we can not fully realize life.

To your earlier post, indeed "state of mind" is a key part to understanding freedom (one thing I was refering to in my examples). Is it an "enabler" or a "limiter"? The answer one generates to this question about anything gives insight into his perspective.

Key to the concept of freedom is that it exists only in the present. So much thought goes into the illusion of a "true freedom" or a "lasting freedom". That is what spawned this topic. When we consider the anthropic principle we see how the illusion is borned and sustained. The person believing they are "free" within a nationistic structure, in part due to the sacrifices of previous generations, make a great deal of assumptions. The biggest part of these assumptions is that life would be somehow worse if things had not unfolded as they did. This in itself imprisons the individual to a set history. One is never free in the present when they are a prisoner of the past.

 

[china]

the caracal kid ---
there is a great deal to be found in starvation and cold, humanbeing.
It is in finding our own limits, and pushing them, that we can begin to find ourselves.
If we always sit comfortably in our cozy realm of safety, we can not fully realize life.
Please investigate .."the desert fathers"on the web .
China --- You know what you are saying .


humanbeing------
If it was one of your conundrums, I didn't get it. If it was a joke, it wasn't funny.

China; no ,I was just thinking what I would do if I was standed from the society , something the society doesn't permit.....grow the "weed".That was the second thing that came to my mind .The first one was to "learn about my self" but that I'm "allowed" to do enywhere ,even within the society . Sorry it offended you.

the caracal kid

The biggest part of these assumptions is that life would be somehow worse if things had not unfolded as they did. This in itself imprisons the individual to a set history. One is never free in the present when they are a prisoner of the past

Yes ,we have to die every moment to the past .

 

[I think not]

Freedom is a subjective perception. There is no single answer.

 

[humanbeing]

there is a great deal to be found in starvation and cold, humanbeing.

It is in finding our own limits, and pushing them, that we can begin to find ourselves.

If we always sit comfortably in our cozy realm of safety, we can not fully realize life.

What I meant was "with no way out", as society can be that way out sometimes, and I often don't think we give the rest of the people around us enough credit. But anyways, you're of course right.

I guess it is interesting what one can find when they look at things in the light that you suggest... and scary to imagine what things would be like if we never did at all... Heck, even a slave can get comfy in his lot in life, and might not even realize the oppression he faces.

It kinda reminds me of affinity groups, such as crisis groups who currently have or have had abusive and dominating partners. A whole part of the big deal with them is not only talking about the burdens they've had upon them, but for many, it is in realizing the burdens are there in the first place.

Sorry it offended you.

No, that's okay, it didn't. Just wasn't sure why you brought it up at first, if there was any reason beyond the obvious or not. I wasn't sure if it was meant to be taken lightly or seriously, and when someone doesn't understand a joke, it usually isn't funny, if you catch what I'm saying.

As to the weed, I would be happy if that's what you were doing, and even more happy if you shared some, should the situation ever arise

 

[china]

As to the weed, I would be happy if that's what you were doing, and even more happy if you shared some, should the situation ever arise


Well I don,t "grow" or smoke ,but I,ve tried it in the past ..and "inhaled" it too.

 

[humanbeing]

Smoking it?!

I was talking about all the other wonderful things we could do with those trees... muster up some of that creativity and craft ropes and wicker baskets!

Heheh... at least you "inhaled" it and had it of your own accord. Not like some people I know who need to conform to something else that is being done to feel good about themselves at that instant.

Reminds me of a story Bill Clinton once told...

You DO like to craft wicker baskets, don't you?

 

[china]

Reminds me of a story Bill Clinton once told

Amen

 

[china]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I think not : [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Freedom is a subjective perception. There is no single answer[/FONT]
_______________________________________________________________________________________
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] It is the truth that frees, not your efforts to be free . [/FONT]As long as you have concepts, you'll never see what is true. In perception of the false there is truth. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all, The past is false and the mind which operates in the past is never new, fresh, innocent free . Freedom requires an awareness that you were created free .

[/FONT]

 

[Curiosity]

Knowing Freedom is to experience the experience - China: Freedom from the past is an excellent way to put it.

We humans rush from high to low several times a day in our zeal to get it all - and therefore we slide through what could be knowing how we are within when we are in both extremes and in a comfortable
middle where no extremes are pulling or pushing us.

Again to know where we are - to "be in" the freedom - and to allow the freedom to morph into a less or more reality for us. This way we can know how we react to differing - even life altering presentations of
our being in this world.

In many ways we have not risen beyond the childhood reactions of fear and joy - and therefore as adults
have not learned who we really are - because we expect to experience the original reactions as we did when very young. We run from bad and to good. Constantly in motion.

For example when getting through our regular lives while a beloved one is entering the last days of life - experiencing terminal time on earth. Each day for us has a new set of reactions and emotions which we may not have had to deal with before. Loss of a loved one (through death or another event), is a learning experience and while unpleasant as hell - should never be avoided but used as a great tool in knowing our strengths and finally the blessed relief of finality and release and pain, and emptiness, from which emerge ever changed but strangely stronger and even more "whole".

A more realized and actualized adult and human being.

 

[the caracal kid]

no,

we are never free of the past. We are products of the past. We can mitigate how much control the past has, to some extent, but that is about it.

We don't flip from bad to good. Bad and good are just constructs, a framework. Some people accept this type of framework programmed into them, some don't.

 

[The Project Man]

no,

we are never free of the past. We are products of the past. We can mitigate how much control the past has, to some extent, but that is about it.

We don't flip from bad to good. Bad and good are just constructs, a framework. Some people accept this type of framework programmed into them, some don't.

Remembering is a bitch. If your past is in conflict with your present it becomes an ominous figure. "Waiting like a stalking butler."

If I could forget all but not to burn myself, walking, and other basic skills on a daily basis would this be freedom?