"Aut inveniam viam aut faciam" I shall either find a way or make one. 
​(Hannibal crossing the Alps)

​There is no absolute freedom, except in theories and dreams. You cannot disregard the given, the necessity of causes above, beyond, beneath and around your will.

In spite of this, quot Spinoza, even a stone thrust, would believe – if conscious – that it flies free [1]. Our will, particularly when we let it roam uncontrolled, has deeper roots in blind spots of the awareness. It appears that we want only what we are able to conceive. You want what you can want.

Even so, this is no reason for fatalism; in fact, smart initiative finds and creates amazing freedom, by its choices... so sad that this freedom remains unavailable to many who do not even know what they can want and what the choices are.



What is freedom, anyway?

Human freedom is not a notion of the infinite Universe, it has nothing to do with Physics and mathematics within which it does not exist; freedom is something that only makes sense when you speak about experiencing it and about its human size. Freedom is something phenomenal, experienced according to our human nature, within our environment. Or else it remains beautiful philosophy or hollow political bull. You cannot let other people measure and define criteria of how you are free or how free you are.

Practical freedom is - positively – to do something different or differently from what would happen without your choices, to act as you prefer, to do something new, to become who you want to be, to have what you desire.

Still, the freedom really yours, being your own master, is to master what you want by some criterion higher than whim. Like your values and plans, for an example. This gives manifold freedom which is indeed yours; higher liberty that doing whatever you fancy.
 
Negatively – and not less crucially - your freedom is not to have and suffer, not to do, to let happen, to abstain, not to become, not to be, what and who you do not want [2]. It is to have a protective space and time of safety around you.

Actually, earning how to avoid what you do not want, finds you more freedom that the triumphs by force.

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For a living person, for you and me, the word “freedom” means nothing “in general” but only related to the variable richness and nature of actual choices one can conceive and practice. To mean something, freedom must always have a definite domain and object. Many objects being possible, in the many fields of our lives, there are many dissimilar freedoms we enjoy. We gain to size-up each instead of confusing them all.

Your freedom can be evaluated– aim by aim and field by field - by the variety and latitude of meaningful choices which you are able to conceive and make, in your mind, and in your life.

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Multiply then the choices you consider, learn to chose to have more freedom. First in your mind, then in whatever you set to do. Use your power to create choices for other people to free them too...

If you want to read more...

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[1] Spinoza, LETTRE XXIX. (O.P. : LXII ; C.A. : LVIII) p.59-60, in SPINOZA LETTRES, TRADUIT PAR E. SAISSET (Ed. 1842), http://www.spinozaetnous.org :
"Une pierre soumise à l’impulsion d’une cause extérieure en reçoit une certaine quantité de mouvement, en vertu de laquelle elle continue de se mouvoir … Concevez maintenant, je vous prie, que cette pierre, tandis qu’elle continue de se mouvoir, soit capable de penser, et de savoir qu’elle s’efforce, autant qu’elle peut, de continuer de se mouvoir. Il est clair qu’ayant ainsi conscience de son effort, et n’étant nullement indifférente au mouvement, elle se croira parfaitement libre et sera convaincue qu’il n’y a pas d’autre cause que sa volonté propre qui la fasse persévérer dans le mouvement. Voilà cette liberté humaine dont tous les hommes sont si fiers. Au fond, elle consiste en ce qu’ils connaissent leur appétit par la conscience, et ne connaissent pas les causes extérieures qui les déterminent. C’est ainsi que l’enfant s’imagine qu’il désire librement le lait qui le nourrit; s’il s’irrite, il se croit libre de chercher la vengeance ; s’il a peur, libre de s’enfuir. C’est encore ainsi que l’homme ivre est persuadé qu’il prononce en pleine liberté d’esprit ces mêmes paroles qu’il voudrait bien retirer ensuite quand il est redevenu lui-même; que l’homme en délire, le bavard, l’enfant et autres personnes de cette sorte sont convaincus qu’ils parlent d’après une libre décision de leur esprit, et non par un aveugle emportement." pp 59-60

[2] To understand negative and positive freedom, a good reference is Berlin, I. (1958) “Two Concepts of Liberty.” In Isaiah Berlin Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1969. Note that Berlin - the philosopher who made the original notions of positive and negative liberty known - defines these two liberties differently, not as they appear in this text; for him positive freedom is the "freedom to" be one's own master, one's own instrument, a doer, at least one who takes part in governing his life; negative freedom is for Berlin to have an unobstructed space of "freedom from"  obstacles, coercion, from others, so that one can act.

 
“What happens to me is because of me!”

I need to recall it more often.

This is how free people think, without however bragging carelessly, nor taking on themselves all the guilt of the World.
 

For they are not madmen, deluded that anything goes, only awakened, self- determined minds who understand from their reality that some things are given but some you make. And even from the given, you can often choose, for they are many...

To be a person, not a toy of fate, you observe and respect that which is given, you do not run into trouble like a fool but - if you keep your head - you are the one who makes the choices, right or poor; for this reason, sooner or later, what you live is your own doing.

Paraphrasing what Joseph de Maistre, wrote so uncharitably about nations - that they end up having the government they deserve* - it is true about individuals too, that those who are unable to fight for their freedom, or to withdraw to the inner exile of their reflective life, or to flee, or perish, deserve their situation.

Psychology has a name for this factor in its jargon - it is called locus of control [1], the place from which you feel that you, what happens to you, is controlled; from inside your lived experience or from somewhere else, outside. If everything is decided elsewhere we are not free, because you are not responsible.

Strangely, the emancipating realm of Reason promised by the Enlightenment to wake up the peoples of the world from the darkness of believing in God-decreed providence, did not live up to its promise. It only replaced the slave-master: divinity deciding everything traded for the revelation of almighty materialist causality.

Educating modern people with a science-given belief that ideas are not world-changing, but mere reflections of given reality, instilling that freedom of will is mere delusion, results in creating puppet-people. Teaching us that on the contrary that the world is a System of systems, ruled by laws independent of us - what matters whether they are divinity's preordained course or Science's objective physical, social, evolving biological universe where our brain and values are ruled by genes, chemistry, electro-physiology  - all this ravishes us of the "unreasonable" confidence needed to turn our dreams real and our actions bold enough to count.

Those who expect and accept whatever happens to them to be determined from an external place, above their reach - commanded by the forces of economy, God, history, chance, rulers or hidden conspiring power-groups or -not better - by the inexorable logic and progress of objective natural processes - those people tend to live like objects, spare-parts and servers of machines, doomed to be some kind of puppets and cogs, helpless and submissive.

Those "fools" those poets and dreamers and visionaries who on the contrary hold that in their life-space, they are the main cause of what happens to them - by what they decide, do, create, build and avoid or defeat by means of their actions [3] - are able, I believe, of substantial control. In their mind, and possibly in deed (as my life has proven in many occasions), they are free. As free as one can humbly be. And that is enough for a life-time well lived. They may fail, many do, but even then, they lived free. As a classic Romanian poem claims:

"We owe a death, we all, death reigns
but it is not at all the same
to die a roaring lion
or a dog in chains" [2]

What a paradox! It is in occasions when we just lost "everything", that is all our reassuring ties and fetters, that we have dangerously more freedom, like a puppet freed of its strings; as Janis Joplin cries out “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose...”

No need to perish for pride, though. What you cannot master and you do not want, you can often avoid, wait-out and work your way around. Let Time work for you.

You can wait and persist still, tepid, like the Taoist water, passive, looking dumb, yet always ready to flow your way by the irresistible force of gravity. Your choice will come to pass, be certain, "provided you have patience to sit by the riverside".

Warning!

Keep away though from the recurring places in time where “everything not forbidden is compulsory” [4]; or run away from there as soon as you can. Do the same when you see that the "wheels of history" start to turn [5] around you.


If you find this interesting read "The choice of choices"
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* Joseph de Maistre: "Every country has the government it deserves (Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite")  cf J. B. Alden, 1880 The Library Magazine vol 2, General Books (29 march 2010) Comment in a letter he wrote in August 1811, later published in Lettres et Opuscules Inedits (1851)  My thanks to Quote/Countrequote - Origins, uses and abuses of famous quotations and phrases

[1] Locus of control: Rotter, J. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcements. Psychological Monographs, 80, Whole No. 609

[2] George Coşbuc, Decebal catre popor: "C-o moarte tot suntem datori!/…/Dar nu-i totuna leu să mori/Ori câine-nlănţuit." My translation
 
 [3] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1998

[4] T.H.White, The Once and Future King

[5] Martin Luther: "Blood alone moves the wheels of history" (but I never found the historic source where Luther wrote this. Note 2019: in fact it was Mussolini, the the sinister comediante who uttered this monstrosity "Blood alone moves the wheels of history!": Speech in Parma (13 December 1914) quoted in Foreign Affairs, May 1924, p 234

 
You can measure the depth of your understanding – and to say it bluntly, your intelligence – by the number of points of view you apply when you consider something or someone[1].

The multiplication of your points of view which you are able to hold in your mind is  a powerful lever of freedom.

Using just one dimension makes man as discerning as an ass. “People who only see one side of things engage in quarrels and disputes” exclaims the Buddha[2].

The unexamined habit is to adopt a point of view and hold firm to it. To become aware of why we came to our slant and to examine multiple points of view – ours and others’ - frees us from such a narrow, unique angle; the more standpoints we conceive, the more we grow able to understand and to dialogue; our action choices increase too. 

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The good news is that adopting more than one point of view is something we can learn. We can become aware of our point of view, understand that it is just that - a point of view to examine - observe other people's position and understand multiple views of that which first appeared one-way. This awareness does not prevent us to take clear decisions.

How then  do you discover what is your point of view? 

By asking yourself.  Care to reflect for a moment. Ask someone you trust to describe to you what your point of view seems to be, compared with other possible ones.

And other people’s points of view? 

Nothing special is needed, just observe, listen and give at least a thought to what other positions are possible.

Stop practicing that truth is one, that right opinion is one and they are all yours.

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[1]See research on this subject called “semantic differential”.  The good news is that you can educate yourself to consider more points of view and so, grow more intelligent.
[2]"Tittha Sutta: Various Sectarians (1)" (Ud 6.4), translated from the Pali by John D. Ireland. Access to Insight, June 14, 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.6.04.irel.html.