Freedom: Part 1: Freedom At Last

Ever hear a song that you haven't heard in a while and for whatever reason it sticks in your mind for a while?   I don't know if it is an earworm at play, suddenly getting the meaning of it aka "really hearing it for the first time" or just the song having a meaning now that it didn't have when you previously had heard it.  I have Sirius XM and they change up some of the channels from time to time.  Recently, they made one of their channels to be the "George Michael" channel.  Whatever demons he had, he was a very talented singer and songwriter and I've always appreciated that.

Anyway, I heard his version of "Freedom" he wrote as part of Wham.  So, it got me to thinking what exactly is freedom?  Can something seem like freedom but is really a prison of sorts?  So, I pondered those two questions/thoughts as well as others and here is what I came up with.

THOUGHTS/DEFINITIONS OF FREEDOM

• The ability to make your own choices/decisions (as opposed to being controlled or pressured to do something different).
• That can mean not having to make a choice.
• That can mean making a choice which you otherwise might not be able to.
• Control can come from an outside source (others).
• Control can come from an internal source (our hangups).
• The can mean not being held back by ourselves/others.

• The ability to be yourself or express yourself without recrimination or at least fear of the consequences of doing so.
• Worrying less about what others think as we get older.
• Often due to confidence gained from experience.
• Often from contempt about being told 'what to okay to do or think', especially when it comes from those with much less life experience.
• Often due to fatigue of expending the energy trying to worry about what others think.
•  The ability to set better set aside or let go of worry about what others think.
• Realization that you can't control what others think.
• Realization that letting what others think gets in the way of being yourself can be harmful or toxic.
• Realization that you'll never be able to please everyone, so you might as well be true to yourself.
• Realization that life is too short and some things are just too important to let others dictate or overly influence you.
• How we raise our children is a great example of this.  While we can heed what others say or take it into account.  We can't let others dictate how we parent.  Being paralyzed by what others think can get in the way of effective parenting.

• Not having to rely on another.
• For our material needs.
• For our contentment or happiness
• For our sense of purpose or being. 

• Not having 'report' to another.
• Could be an employer
• Could be a parent or adult or someone who is in charge of you.
• Could be a mate.

• Nothing left to hold onto/nothing left to lose.  This one I will explore in another blog post.

• Really just an illusion.
• We always have someone we need to report to
• Even a business owner will have to 'report' to his or has to answer to clients or potential clients.
• Every year on our around April 15th-and for some more often-people have to report to the IRS.  
• In our modern society, we will always have to rely on others. Examples include
• Not everyone can raise their own livestock or farm for feed needs.
• We don't have the ability to maintain or fix the roads we travel on in most cases.
•  Freedom is rarely free
• Each Memorial, Veteran's and Independence Day, we are reminded of the cost of fighting to achieve and retain our freedoms (life and death struggle).
• Often we have to give up something to gain freedom.
• Dying gives us freedom from pain and suffering
• Lonliness and alienation from some of those around us can be the cost of freedom from a 'bad relationship'.
• Financial hardship can result from being separated from a soul-sucking job.

Let's break some points down a little further.

Freedom From Control

•  I think when mot people think of freedom, they think of not having to answer to someone or not having someone try to control you in some way.  That's easy to spot.  What is harder to spot is when is when you are in your own prison.  That is where you are beholden to your own demons or hang-ups.  

Freedom Is Being Yourself

•  I believe history is littered with people who felt imprisoned to expectations of those close to them and society in general.  Whether we feel we cannot choose whom we couple with, what we should do with our lives, what we are allowed to think or express, or something else along those lines, being imprisoned to the expectations of others is hard on the soul.  Back in the day,  I've always been a very sensitive person and in some regards in the era I grew up in that was frowned upon as a guy.   I felt like there was a pressure to be 'macho' and not show 'weakness' or especially sensitivity.  The later for a guy was interpreted by some as a sign of homosexuality or at least being a 'sissy'.  I never saw and still don't see those things in myself, but as a teen wanting acceptance, I certainly didn't want to be pegged anything like that.   I liked what I liked.  I liked 'Wham!' and I think to a large extent people 'knew' George Michaels was gay.   I knew it wasn't the most macho music for a guy to listen to, but I liked it, but didn't brag about that.  I have realized over time that the fact that I like it was all that was important.  It didn't matter if it didn't fit the stereotype of 'dude' music.  It didn't matter if people mocked them (and by proxy) guys who might like it.  None of that mattered.  I like what I like and if others have a problem with it, well I might not be accepted, but if that's the price of acceptance, it's not worth it.   But as a guy with a very sensitive side, I knew I had to 'keep it hidden'.   Anyway, the freedom to be yourself is either the actually when you aren't criticized for being who you are OR it is the ability to move past caring or at least getting paralyzed by what others think. 

Freedom Is A Prison

• You want to give up drinking, smoking, gambling, etc.   However, your spirit is trapped in rut where you feel compelled to feed your hang-ups.  As I alluded to earlier, this can be a prison of sorts rather than 'freedom'.  You may be old enough to engage in self-destructive and addictive behavior and you may even celebrate your 'freedom' to engage in certain behaviors.  But, in time what seemed like freedom really is imprisonment to your own demons.

Freedom Can Have A Cost

• Like most things that matter in life, there is cost. To live a comfortable life, we typically have to work hard and sometimes long hours.  To do the best for our kids, we often have to sacrifice or set aside our own needs or wants.  Freedom is no different.  We may not have to go to the front line and put our life on the line, to ensure our (and others') freedom, but there is usually a cost.   If we are okay with being single, we may not have to 'answer to' a mate, but we may feel lonliness at times and we may give up the chance for a love connection.  We may be away from a toxic job that was hurting us mentally and/or spiritually, but it may come at a cost of a lifestyle we are used to.  We want the freedom to afford to travel where we want, but we have to sacrifice a lot of time on hard work to afford us the opportunity.  We have a 1st Amendment to speak our mind, we may not go to prison, but it can cost us things like our job and our friends.  There are countless examples, but the point is clear.  Freedom is not free.

There are many other possible takes on freedom I'm sure, but these are the ones that stand out to me.  As I think freedom means nothing left to lose needs a more of a treatment, I will leave that for later, but I think this covers a lot of ground.

Just my thought and I hope some of my takes get my readers to think about it.  Maybe come up with their own definitions and perhaps come up with a different take.  In any case, as I am ending this blog, feel free to spend your time on other things.  Maybe feel free to look at other blog posts.

Cheers,

Rich

Caring means sharing: Do Troubled People Care?

In this life, I think everyone has run across people who are troubled or tormented, perhaps maybe even themselves or a close family member or friend. We've all heard the arguments, "pro" and "con", defending and condemning people with hangups and addictions.  By "pro" and "con", I mean arguments that seemingly 'defend the addict' vs. those which seemingly 'condemn the addict', but I digress. These positions boils down to whether you choose to focus on placing blame and culpability on the troubled person OR whether you chose to focus on understanding what is troubling them. I believe it is not an either/or. I believe there is room for both culpability and understanding. One particular perspective that has grated me over the years is this: If he/she cared enough... I will dive into that perspective later, but first let me introduce the culpability/blame vs. understanding model (using arguments I've seen, heard and thought of) and see where I end up.

Culpability/Blame Model

• If she hadn't taken that first drink...
• If he hadn't abuses his medicines...
• If she hadn't gambled away his money at risk at the casino...
• If he/she cared about his/her family than his or her own 'happiness'...
• If it (family/friends/job) were important enough for him/her.
• He is not really trying...
• She is trying to avoid getting in trouble...
• He is making excuses...
• She doesn't care...
• I've faced adversity and didn't need a crutch....

Understanding Model 

• She grow up in a rough home...
• Poor
• Abusive
• Addictive/codependent family.
• He didn't know his dad, mom, ...
• The 'role models' she did have taught her the wrong lessons...
• He was taking addictive pain meds for an injury and got hooked...
• She was just trying to cope with adversity in childhood, young adulthood, etc...
• He had no way to know or no one to tell him that that the path and/or friends he was choosing were risky...
• She never meant to hurt anyone...
• It may seem obvious to us, but to someone his circumstance...

To a 'blamer', the addict is intentionally engaging in destructive behavior for their own selfish desires with callous disregard for how it affects others.  They might see steps taken by the addict to get sober as half-hearted or insincere.  They might view such efforts as a way to avoid having to face punishment.  In short, they believe the addict is totally about themselves.  In short, when others say an addict doesn't care about others, they mean he or she is pretty much a jerk without a conscience. 

To "understanding person", the addict is a person caught up in his or her own personal struggles.  The addict can be in their 'sober' moments is capable of being a compassionate, caring, loving, thoughtful person.  However, the addict, when their addiction takes hold, when they are triggered, are overwhelmed by their 'needs', by withdrawal, by unbearable impulses, it is not necessarily that they don't want to exclude considering others, but they are overwhelmed by their addiction.  In other words, it's not that they wouldn't want to care, but they are not in a good place.  In some ways, it can be a vicious cycle, their addiction has caused harm to themselves and others.  Realizing this in their sober moments can be overwhelming and further push their addiction cycle.

--

From what I see, it's not always clear-cut like.  It is not always, blame/shame the troubled person or understand them.  We must consider a few things first.

• Has the person been clinically diagnosed?
• Is their behavior indicative of a sociopath?
• Is their behavior indicative of an addict?
• Is their behavior indicative of having another mental disorder?
• Has the person tried to get help?
• Has the person shown in their more lucid moments regret or remorse?
• Has the person shown a cold, calculating, planning side or do they seem in the grip of something?
• Has the person ever had a good role model to give them a reference point?
• Has the person ever been given the tools they needed to help themselves or to deal with damage done?

I guess my take has always is this

• People, whether their legally/morally/ethically troubling behavior is a result of hurt/addiction or just a callous disregard for others, they still have to face the consequences of it.   You can be understanding of how their behavior or actions were born and what they are driving by, but ultimately it cannot go 'unpunished'.
• People often have points in their life in which they have a choice and make the wrong choice, like taking the first drink or hanging out with people their better judgment tells them not to.  Choices like this can put us on a bad path and they need to own it. But we should be clear that sometimes the extent of the poor choice is it or wasn't isn't totally clear to them at the time.  I'd venture to guess that many who smoke that first cigarette or joint or take that first bottle, for example, envision the lifelong struggle they are submitting to. 
• If their behavior is a result damage done to them and/or an addiction born out of coping, consequences should include an intervention by mental health professionals or a program designed to help such people.  If their behavior is born out of a callous disregard for others, no capacity to have any empathy, even when 'sober', then the problem is larger than an addiction.
• If they were put in a circumstance in which 'they never had a chance', that should be taken into account before deciding they are 'irredeemable'.  That is to say, they never had a chance to develop good coping skills.  Still negative behavior should have consequences regardless.
• Understand that it is easy to label people troubled by addiction as not caring about others or not wanting to get better bad enough or whatever.   Sometimes that might be true.  Sometimes when given a chance, they do prefer their lifestyle.  Sometimes they just may be too broken to easily help themselves or for that matter help or 'care' about others. In other words, the weakness of their emotional state in conjunction with the nature and strength of their addiction is just too potent a combination to easily rebound or recover from.  

I believe most people have some good in them.  In the movies, Anakin Skywalker (aka Darth Vader) had been a caring young boy and caring young man before he was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force.  But as his son Luke had suspected and discovered in The Empire Strikes Back, deep inside his tormented suit, lived a good man who was seduced and addicted.  It took seeing the Emperor attempt to kill his son, to push him to overcome.  So, before we write off those who struggle with and succumb to addiction even to the point destroying themselves let's look a little deeper.  Like the Emperor, they truly may not care and love that which it brings them. Then again they may be the tormented soul that is Anakin, who wanted to do the right thing but caught up as a result of his struggle and fears and ended up doing the wrong thing.

Just my some thoughts.  Apply them as needed.

Yours truly,

Rich

--

It's true I did extend the invitation
I never knew how long you'd stay
When you hear temptation call
It's your heart that takes