Simple yet elusive..

We have had many people talking about National freedom. We have talked enough of it - the sacrifice, the struggle, the long list of people who laid their lives for the common cause, the atrocities committed and a whole lot of other things. We all know that. We have talked about that. We acknowledge all the sacrifices that they made in the form of many national holidays. So thats not the what this blog is all about.

This blog is about what freedom means as an individual. More often than not, it is seen as conflicting with values and questions like "Where does the compromise on values start and hence freedom start?" arise. Is personal Freedom necessarily a compromise of values? May be not. Values does not mean restricting oneself and freedom does not mean "becoming bad". Freedom is to be able to do what one perceives as 'correct' in accordance to his or her highest sense of righteousness. Hence, freedom is in accordance with values. It is more like a paradox. The knowledge of values (wrongly conceived as restrictions) actually liberates you. This gives us the capability to give mutual respect for each other's personal space and at the same time be intimately associated. This will make us realize that whatever others do, how we react to other's actions is solely our liberty. End of it all, we are at liberty to chose our state of mind from a zillion different options - anger, sadness, gloom, desperation, sheer dejection or ecstasy. This also empowers us to be at peace with ourselves irrespective of what is happening around us. We are not only free, but we are obliged to take the responsibility for what we end up doing wholly. I guess it is this responsibility or rather the shrinking from this responsibility or the fear to take this responsibility that makes us feel that we are in chains at times, while we truly are not.