PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
we be wrong about what happiness is? Can we be wrong about what freedom is? If, individually or collectively, we misunderstand the nature of what true freedom is, then do we potentially risk producing the exact opposite of what we desired and expected? Although the allure of some forms of freedom may be sweet and seductive, do they also hide a trap we do not see coming? Are these the traps throughout history into which many individuals and civilisations have unwittingly and repeatedly fallen? Is this a possible contributor to many of the social and health-related problems we are currently facing? There are many questions we could
and need to ask ourselves in relation to freedom. Is it, for example, merely an outer state where an individual has few if any external demands or limits placed upon them socially, legally or morally? Is freedom at heart really an inner state regardless of external circumstances, and yet an inner state happily able to accommodate reasonable external demands and limits? Is true freedom a total lack of discipline or rather a highly- disciplined state of self-mastery? Can true freedom be found by giving license to individual desires no matter what they might be, or is it found, as many wisdom traditions maintain, through being free enough of desire to give expression only to those that deserve the assent of wise discernment and prudence? Is humanity left up to its own devices, as it were, free to make up its own laws, or are we irrevocably bound
by natural laws which form the template for the social, legal and moral limits that a free, wise, just, stable and happy society should set for itself? Is true freedom whatever the individual and/or society thinks it is, or can the individual and/or society be wrong about what constitutes true freedom, like mistaking fools’ gold for real gold? Is freedom a worldly state, a state of mind, or a spiritual state? How could we tell?
THE SHADOW SIDE OF FREEDOM There are important implications for accepting one or other idea about what freedom is. If we see it merely as the removal of external limits, then it produces a kind of apparent freedom, but one that may come at a cost. Indeed, we may get what we want, but are we prepared to have what comes with it? For example, living a life of excess is a kind of freedom, but lifestyle-related illnesses are the heavy cost that individuals and societies are having to increasingly deal with. A child who has no limits put on their screen-time, gaming and social media use enjoys a kind of freedom, but one that soon comes with the costs of high rates of ADHD, poor sleep and mental health, poor academic performance and vulnerability to bullying, cyber-crime and addiction to technology. A very deregulated economic system enjoys a kind of economic freedom but is also one that is vulnerable to greed, inequity and economic injustice.
A LAW UNTO OURSELVES We do really need to take pause and not necessarily assume everything that flies under the banner of freedom will actually make us freer. Is it possible that, like the Pied Piper, some champions of freedom may be leading us with a sweet-sounding tune that takes us somewhere unexpected and unwanted? To illustrate, the most important ruling principle these days in ethical terms is autonomy otherwise known as ‘self- rule’ (from auto – self and nomos – law), i.e. that a person should be a law unto themselves. It is natural for us to want to live our own life in the way that we want to, although we would probably all agree that a person shouldn’t be a law unto themselves to the point that they should be able to harm others. Yet we are drawing fewer limits on personal choices, even to the point of assuming that we should be autonomous to the point that we can harm ourselves. But the question is rarely asked, “What part of the ‘self’ should we be ruled by?”
DID PLATO HAVE IT TABBED? There are different parts of our psyche that often conflict with each other with regards to the choices they would have us make. We all have the so-called ‘human condition’, but the world’s great wisdom traditions have always had warnings, advice and precepts aimed at helping us to govern ourselves more wisely. For example, two and a half thousand years ago Plato outlined his conception of the human psyche and
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