I am living. Breathing. Free. But really, what exactly does it mean to “be free”? Is it to be independent of other people’s perception of you? Is it to have been rid of responsibility? I can’t say. The only thing I can say though, is that I do not define freedom as such. Freedom for me, is a state of fluid. Dynamic, mouldable, yet not tangible (though you can translate it into tangibility).
I want to start exploring by defining a person as a single entity. This “person” has a body which is tangible. It grasps onto objects and experiences them. This “person” could define themselves with such graspable objects. It reflects its sense of self with the experience of them. Though this should provide some consolation of security (for a solid identity) to the self, it does not provide sufficient grounding. To me, the sense of self is fluid. It changes with every interaction, reflection and encounter. This is the stem of freedom. Freedom too, is fluid, like the sense of self.
A “person” has the privilege of experiencing itself. These experiences, not bound to only tangible objects, define the boundaries of freedom—limits. To possess self, is also to possess will. Experience guides will. Hence, will too defines freedom. The person has the will to define the limits of the freedom it possesses. A person could do anything and everything, only if it has the will. To have substance, to recreate such “will,” one must have put some definitions to its freedom. It must reinstate how “free” it is to do something. For example, a “person” is completing an essay. For it to do so, it must define the topic and its limitations. It must cite its sources. That is exactly what defining “freedom” is. Your will is the only limitation to freedom.
You define your boundaries, personality and traits as such. Your will is to give such patterns—objective traits—to how people define you as, still superficially. These perceptions of other people too, sometimes, give structure to personal “freedom”: remarks, absolute definitions. Hence, this translates into tangible freedom.
On more personal and unfinished matters, I am conscious of this. I, a person, has the will too, to construct before mentioned boundaries. But I have no inherent substance; in the sense that I have not defined myself. I mould and shape myself to media; tangible things. I do not have primary grounding to define boundaries. To me, inherently, will is a construct, a concept blocking my ability to define boundaries of perception for myself. If I succeed in setting them, I collapse in action; if I act, I find myself shapeless again. This, too, is “will” in itself. Then perhaps freedom too inherently, is the ability to define such will—a paradox I cannot resolve. Not yet.
I am still unfinished, with no definitive experience to validate such thoughts. This is as far as my mind stretches out to me.