Freedom is Not Licence
Freedom is not licence but as with love, is rather willing bondage and this applies to matters as well as to people.
Freedom is often acclaimed as one of the highest aspirations and most valued conditions of man’s existence. The idea is woven into every culture and civilization, every country, state, society and into the lifestyle of the individual. It is an essential ingredient of our human requirement.
We may often use the word ‘freedom’ but what does it really mean? Aside from the well accepted association of a state of being unrestricted, unrestrained, or unbound, there are two considerations – the one being freedom from something we would wish to escape and the other is that wonderful aspiration to enter a condition we desire.
Freedom from the negatives or unwelcome situations is perhaps the easier to focus upon as we all share the desire to escape tyranny, enslavement, cruelty, poverty, pain, disease and suffering of any kind.
As a humanity we all wish for a peaceful future, free to benefit from our cultural achievements which have been so hard-won over so many centuries of human endeavour just as we wish to be free of the horrors of our cruel history of the past.
The positive aspect is often neglected in our thinking and our ways of government. As individuals we wish the freedom to be creative and constructive in our individual way within the bounds of society’s universal laws and codes; free to live out our lives in a worthwhile manner; free to contribute our talents constructively.
Our freedom quality is that which encompasses both the respect of free will and the attendant responsibility that disallows hurt or harm to others. It is a recognition of the freedom of self expression and yet never at the expense of the sensitivity or welfare of others.
It is the gift of free will that allows us to know personal freedom as it is our self discipline that guides us to right choices and application of this powerful tool.
Discipline is required to be exercised before Self-discipline. Self discipline is our passport to freedom in the art of living as in every other art.
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