On 15th August, an only friend of mine to send me a text message which said “Happy Independence Day”… I had to ask myself this question- Why is it “Independence Day” and why not “Freedom Day”?
Freedom and Independence have been used so inter-changingly that we refuse to differentiate what actually these two words mean?
Freedom – is a right to act or speak freely;
A state wherein you are not a slave or a prisoner;
Wherein there are no restrictions what so ever.
Independence - in true sense means free from control of others;
it’s like earning enough money to support your self.
It’s separation from the controller.
Therefore to relate both - freedom comes from independence and independence does not come from freedom!
Why do we long for freedom?
Man as a being, is a wanderer and likes to wander without territories, without a limit being set. Often conflicts and wars took place between primitive tribes of pre-civilizations to conquer territories and this happens even today when countries invade and try to conquer territories. This is all a result of boundaries being drawn, which results in setting Limitations. These Limitations might be actual line-drawn or those, which we set in the mind. But the fact is that limitations are set and it is, defined by boundaries.
A rebellious child or person succeeds in being rebellious or, displaying rebellious behavior because, there are set limits & boundaries and he/she is expected to act and restrict to within these limits & boundaries. Hypothetically re-laid, what if the limits & boundaries were dismantled or never set?
The child or a rebel would never be able to get rebellious or display rebelliousness, because rebelliousness ceases to exist if the limits & boundaries are non-existent or removed. The inability to display that behavior provides lesser platform to display that behavior and therefore the rebel will cease to exist. This can only be a result of limitlessness and boundaries non-existence.
In life we set boundaries(expectations) & limits (controls), because we believe and are comfortable that way…either those limits & boundaries are set by someone else who dictates our minds or by ourselves, so that we live and sustain within those limits & boundaries….
It’s always a funny feeling of missing something if we don’t set those limits & boundaries. Today therefore, limits & boundaries have become the order of our lives. We set limits on our goals & objectives, we set limits & boundaries on our loved ones, we set limits & boundaries on ourselves, which we actually are setting limits & boundaries on our thinking and our own abilities and in the process forcing it on others…..
We even set limits on our passion….passion in professional lives and in personal living. Exhibiting passion to even someone we love is something we shy away from. Why? Because someone determined our minds to curb those exhibition of passion from within….its wrong to express yourself without limits & boundaries – limitlessness and binding-less…..- I was told… so am a slave of that thought…not of mine….but of that someone who put it into my head….
What we fail to realize is that these limitations we set, actually translate from personal lives right into our professional lives. And in the gush of living we forget LIFE, and most often in that rush to catch-up with LIFE we forget LIVING!
Is this what we call Freedom? Yes that the only definition we know and we are comfortable with that definition. Aren’t we?? We continue to live in that pseudo-freedom!
While we celebrate our country’s independence, we seldom use the word “FREEDOM”. We hardly call it “freedom Day”- because we are so sure in our minds that Independence can be granted to anyone by anyone, and we always wait for other people to do things for us even if it matters in our own lives where it is always Living over our Life.
But since freedom has to be taken (it cannot be given), it has to be what we strive for, there fore we let it be the way it is….we long to be bonded with the bondage of the mind and therefore we dread Liberation…..what are we talking of is our own liberation…. Liberating our minds to freedom where we have the liberty to touch our own lives and shape it to LIVING rather than merely this LIFE….because we are born and we ought to live.
We are ashamed of our own freedom, and we shy away from liberating our own thoughts that lead to a positive possible explosive way-of-living, and thus we are comfortable with this way-of- life – a routine, the rudimentary standards that we set and, to comfortably say “I AM LIKE THIS ONLY” – “I AM DOING MY BEST’ - so convenient, isn’t it? Yes it is an easy way of avoiding conflict with our won self. It’s rather better this way, than to own up for our own freedom – because freedom comes with responsibility and ownership without being dissected from each other.
No one by you will be responsible and will have to own up for every action or inaction; decision or indecision, results or no-results; success or failure. How’s that possible? How can I take so much of a load?
So I would rather trade my personal Freedom, my freedom of the mind with mere independence, because its something that is given and its so easy to take, rather than own up for self. We love being told what’s to be done. Even though we understand that it’s a manifestation of the other person’s mind, but it is most convenient rather than usage and exercising one’s own freedom of mind.
Let’s assume that we take ownership during one-odd gush of adrenaline and try to shape our freedom. On its way, in progress, when we realize that its too much of freedom that I may not be used to – I would conveniently shift to independence even though I understand that it leads to the extent of ‘me’ being a martyr of my own sacrifices neatly drawn on the pinup-board as an evidence for future generations of mine.
We say with pride - I sacrificed for my parents, I gave-in to people around, I took it on me for my child/ren….Wow! What a feeling to be consoled as great as a to-be martyr of your own doings or misdoings, so conveniently shifting of strata from Freedom to Independence… Now that this transition has transpired, we get cozy on it, making an effort to make the self- belief even much concrete that I sacrificed… Yes…. I did it for others and ……………………………So????
And so we start to believe that this is the greatest form of LIFE….but fail to understand that it never going to he best form of Living, and that is the truth!
The guilt of our own inability to follow our freedom starts eating into us and so to disorient, to divert our own self we start to focus on materialism…. We over-shop; over indulge, and become over ambitious on careers and small frills of LIFE… an ultimate justification for the independence we are now striving for, and that we have given up on our personal freedom, we fight harder to prove to the world that this independence (in guise of freedom to us) has done me so much good and I HAVE GROWN in Life….yet so much short of LIVING….
We then start to live in a pseudo-world of our own and we want to believe that we are this “MISS-PERFECT” or “MR.-PERFECT” what an achievement? Who are we trying to prove and what for? In the few days that have been granted to us, we have already become slaves of Independence, but so, so far away from Freedom!
The fact of all these illusions remains that we are INDEPENDENT and way, way behind FREEDOM.
Consolation through becoming a martyr? Heroism through sacrifice? A superb status through channelizing multiple facet display to counter our failures in truly personal areas, and with thorough disorientation to daily ‘way of life’ situations…
We focus on trivial areas such as, what’s for break-fast? Rather than, Why this break-fast….because, I need to bother less on peripheral objectives, (lest someone traces it out, that I have failed thoroughly on my personal freedom)….I know from deep within me that my goals at the moment will never lead me to Freedom…. I shall thus talk now just about INDEPENDENCE ….Shhhh about FREEDOM !!!
Lets talk about it another time?
