Essay On Discerning The Mundane

641 Words2 Pages

Carter Habecker Mrs. Blamey Composition 11X 4 April 2014 Discerning the Mundane Freedom is a simple enough idea we generally all accept and claim to understand and partake in. Besides, we live in a free country, do we not? You’ve heard the title land of the free and know the gist of the idea as it is applied to our everyday lives. Our freedom comes from our government when people do their duties as a citizen and play the roles they are told to. But, is that really freedom? No. The typical understanding of freedom we all accept as correct remains heinously perverted in regards to the true meaning of freedom. Although freedom is blindly understood as the rudimentary ability to speak and act without restraint, the genuine meaning of freedom exhibits a deeper complexity staunchly relying on individualism in action, morals, and mental capacities- an idea that bends the minds of humans, as it is a seemingly rare variation of the idea. When aiming for a negation of freedom one need not look any further than duty. The concept of duty is absolute in its exclusion of freedom. Duty calls for an individual to refrain from individuality and fall in line with a general standard. This specifically applies to freedom in action although it does bleed into the moral freedoms of an individual due to the influence a duty has on choice and, in turn, one’s moral affinities residing in that decision. Regardless of the action, those acts executed in accordance with obligation to outside factors are presumably unfree. Man is within the realm of freedom when self-governance or autonomy is fulfilled solely through individual choice without external inspiration. Consequently and somewhat unfortunately, an observable lack of autonomous action resides in thi... ... middle of paper ... ...her do likewise. Therefore, freedom is in itself a peaceful notion and has nothing to do with the imposition of ideals of any sort. The relation of duty, conflict, peace, action, morals, interaction with others, and expression towards freedom is inescapable and presents the fact that freedom has much more to do with our lives than being able to yell fire in a movie theatre or burn an American flag. Yes, it is much more deeply rooted in the life of an individual to the point of nearly defining individual itself. With an understanding of freedom as true in nature as it is in humans one captures an ability of understanding that ascends that of speculation concerning the actions of others and the drive behind them. One might even conclude that freedom is quite possibly the best knowledge behind the comprehension of human life, perhaps even better than the number 42.

Open Document