Freedom! then POWER!!
An interesting revelation came up over dinner tonight. An oddly humorous discussion was "stunned" into silence for 10 secs when I finally made an equation of the 2.
"Power, is the freedom to do things." Freedom in this case, the absence or release of constraint, to make a decision or choice. Then what is power? Power is the freedom to affect others with your decision or choice. Or at least, that is the case in my view.
Every stage of our lives are governed by restraints. Sometimes, these restraints are there to prevent us from doing what is harmful, or wrong. And sadly, some are there to prevent us from doing what is right, or reaching an enlightenment on issues or problems. Observing the world around me, I realize that I've become bounded by quite a bundle of chains over the years. My views are often what the government wanted them to be, and my actions, what my society made them to be. Its easy to just sit back and believe everything that the media tells us, and the values they impart to internalize in us. Just another "harmless" chain.
Then we have those people who have the freedom to affect others. These people have Power. Whether the source of that "freedom" extends from politics, or charisma, the end result is power. What they say, what they do, affects people around them, and the people around the people around them. Unfortunately, that power to affect in turn is not really compatible with the freedom of those that get affected. Folks like me, end up in the chains of those who wield the power. And of course, folks like me wouldn't know it unless we spend a bit of time to think about it instead of sleeping or watching anime. And the first step to freedom, I guess, is knowing that we actually aren't free.
I like this quote, but I don't know who the hell its by. But this is how it goes.
"We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free."
Please read between the lines and its subtlety.
listening to the rain...
12:35 AM
