Humanity Sans Frontières
Human beings have great abilities to create our own reality, to choose our own path, to make of our lives what we want. We have conquered many goals, explored around the globe and beyond, discovered scientific truths and interesting ideas. Some achievements are more difficult than others, but we glory in the challenge, are proud of what we have done with determination, and set more goals for the future. What we want to make of ourselves is only limited by imagination and exposure.
Human beings are also greatly constrained. We fulfill obligations, obey the law, live up to expectations, respect our place, budget our resources. There is only so much time, money, and energy for us mortals. We talk about these restrictions with the term must, as if we have a sacred duty to our responsibilities, even ones that we create ourselves or inherit from the previous generation who inherited from the previous generation and so on. What we mean by these constraints we treat as immutable is that we put demands on ourselves to live up to a particular image, or we fear consequences, or we have certain priorities.
L’homme est né libre et partout il est dans les fers.
Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains. -Rousseau
Many of the chains appear, with a little exploration, to be our own creation. Obligations, expectations, and respect are constructs, but we treat them as absolutes. With this bad faith, we make excuses and believe them. We have, with or without recognition of our agency, the ability to critique them. Yet they bring with them a sense of identity, and this we dare not shatter—it is precious.
Often we like to exercise a little freedom here and there, in order that we can feel that we are the author of our own life. Yet the ways in which we stretch our wings are rather weak, not venturing very far from the feeling of safety we have built like a nest. The return flight is already booked, we grip the passport firmly in hand, the next step is predetermined in mind. As well, we often take some freedoms in exchange while conceding others, as if there is some karmic credit to being part of humanity. One governmental power takes the place of the other. We vote to voice our choice in the system of democracy, but fool ourselves in thinking how much of a difference these decisions make.
Liberty as well is a burden, since freedoms and rights come with risks and responsibilities. We are in charge of ourselves, becoming victors or victims, shaping our identity as adventurers or writers or deviants, achieving and defining the purpose of our life. This is heavy work. Treating obligations, expectations, and respect as absolute comes with the benefit of relieving some of this mental burden.
We rarely lose ourselves in a moment of freedom like Icarus, who was warned of the limitations of his feathers constructed in beeswax, but was so transported in the moment of delight when he soared his wings to reach into the sky. He was gloriously divine in mind when he disregarded the limitations of mortality, losing himself in his potential. Yes, he fell. Yet he is not known for dying from foolishness. He lived fully, followed his ambition, and enjoyed the ride. Our heroes achieve glory regardless of living or dying. While we admire them, we do not dare to be so bold.
We can say both “I enjoy the provocation” and “I can not; I do not have the ability” to the same source of force, with a slight awareness of the irony and contradiction, yet content in the cognitive dissonance. The force can be a challenge from the universe, a friend who dares to confront us, or even our own self, who routinely sets various resolutions to be a better person and again and again falls short. We have grown accustomed to confronting challenges with our usual habits of preferring stability. A little adventure beyond our comfort is occasionally acceptable, but do not expect much.
How we interpret our freedoms and limitations is greatly shaped by our attitude. The perspective can be one of liberty, where the freedom of thought is a natural right: we are born with it, and nothing and no one has the ability to restrict it short of taking our life. In the darkest moments, the saints met demands with determination and defiance. We have the ability to be rebels, pirates, or revolutionaries. In the beautiful moments as well, we have the ability as thinkers to be unhappy, to complain, to fight against any adversary we find or create. Perspective has much more of a role than we imagine.
Some of the chains are societal, some are practical, some are contextual; many are our own construct, and many more than we want to admit are attitudinal.