Skip to main content

Free Yourself


I am not free to jump from the balcony of my residence.  If I jump, I may break one of my limbs. Because I stay on the first floor. 

Freedom does not mean permission to do whatever I like.  “We are free only where we know,” said Will Durant [The Story of Philosophy].  Knowledge gives freedom.  Knowledge is freedom.

Most of us make the mistake of thinking that doing what we like to do is freedom.  What we like is determined by our knowledge or awareness or consciousness level.  The rapist in Delhi whose number keeps rising by the day (in spite of the equally rising number of religious leaders) thinks he is free to rape a child. His knowledge or consciousness level is too low to understand why his act is based on an incomplete understanding of himself.  

Passion is good and necessary for any human being.  Anyone without passion will be as good as a rock in the denuded Himalayas.

Freedom is not freedom passions. 

Freedom is freedom from uncoordinated or un-understood passion.  Freedom is the freedom from the thief within me.  From the politician in me.  From the assaulter in me.  From the rapist in me...

Freedom does not make me a superman who is free from social restraints.  Freedom does not make me a Spiderman of filmy heroism, either.  Freedom does not make me a godman or godwoman who will condemn other people as irredeemable... or see oneself as capable of working miracles in any institution.

Freedom is understanding myself properly and working toward my own self-fulfilment.  Unfolding my individuality.  Achieving my potential to its fullest.  Becoming what I can.  What I really wish.  What my heart really wishes.  And helping other individuals unfold their potential in the process.

In the words of Will Durant, “To be great is not to be placed above humanity, ruling others; but to stand above the partialities and futilities of uninformed desire, and to rule one’s self.”

To rule one’s self.

To rule one’s self.  That’s the real freedom. That’s the real power. 


PS.  This post is dedicated to a person whose speech I listened to this morning.  Yet another speech ad nauseam.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Easwar ArumugamApril 23, 2013 at 9:35 PM

    I agree that knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery.

    Nice, thought-provoking read.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 23, 2013 at 9:48 PM

      That knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery is ancient wisdom, Easwar ji. I was just repeating it in different words. People simply refuse to understand it, you see.

      Delete
  2. Vishal AroraApril 23, 2013 at 10:58 PM

    very nice post sir....I believe it is even so more important for the todays youth to understand these as we get flown away in today fast life and the rat race....and then form our over skewed definition of life...

    InkMyTravel

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 24, 2013 at 7:13 AM

      There's so much lack of self-understanding today, Vishal, which leads to so many problems.

      It is a skewed definition of life, as you say...

      Delete
  3. KISLAYA GOPALApril 24, 2013 at 12:45 AM

    This is so true, if we rule ourselves everyone can enjoy freedom in real sense. Freedom for someone should not become slavery or drudgery or opression for someone else!
    A very good and meaningful post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 24, 2013 at 7:14 AM

      Everyone can live happily on this planet if everyone thinks a little differently... Thanks.

      Delete
  4. mandakolathurApril 24, 2013 at 5:58 AM

    EXCELLENT!

    RE

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousApril 24, 2013 at 10:36 AM

    Sir, you have definitely defined freedom to its best .. and that is knowledge ... the fact that many of our lives are restricted from this beautiful freedom .. understanding the knowledge of freedom is in itself freedom ! a must read for all the youth !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 24, 2013 at 11:33 AM

      I'm indebted to Will Durant and his essay on Spinoza for most of the views expressed here. Thanks for your appreciation.

      Delete
  6. RatApril 24, 2013 at 3:00 PM

    very good read

    ReplyDelete
  7. MaliniApril 25, 2013 at 6:48 AM

    As an aspiring entrepreneur, I can relate to each and every word of this post. In fact, it reflects the deepest thought in my mind right now. Thanks for writing this at this point in time!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 26, 2013 at 10:30 AM

      I'm immensely happy to hear your words, Malini. It's good to know that my writing makes sense to people.

      Delete
  8. Anupam KarnApril 25, 2013 at 12:01 PM

    Freedom - So truely defined! Liked the words of Durant:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 26, 2013 at 10:31 AM

      Durant can teach us all much more than all the contemporary psychological writers who give easy solutions to everything...

      Delete
  9. AnonymousApril 28, 2013 at 10:24 AM

    Thought Provoking. Simply Great!!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
17 comments
Read more

The Blind Lady’s Descendants

Book Review Title: The Blind Lady’s Descendants Author: Anees Salim Publisher: Penguin India 2015 Pages: 301 Price: Rs 399 A metaphorical blindness is part of most people’s lives.  We fail to see many things and hence live partial lives.  We make our lives as well as those of others miserable with our blindness.  Anees Salim’s novel which won the Raymond & Crossword award for fiction in 2014 explores the role played by blindness in the lives of a few individuals most of whom belong to the family of Hamsa and Asma.  The couple are not on talking terms for “eighteen years,” according to the mother.  When Amar, the youngest son and narrator of the novel, points out that he is only sixteen, Asma reduces it to fifteen and then to ten years when Amar refers to the child that was born a few years after him though it did not survive.  Dark humour spills out of every page of the book.  For example: How reckless Akmal was! ...
5 comments
Read more

Ram, Anandhi, and Co

Book Review Title: Ram C/o Anandhi Author: Akhil P Dharmajan Translator: Haritha C K Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2025 Pages: 303 T he author tells us in his prefatory note that “this (is) a cinematic novel.” Don’t read it as literary work but imagine it as a movie. That is exactly how this novel feels like: an action-packed thriller. The story revolves around Ram, a young man who lands in Chennai for joining a diploma course in film making, and Anandhi, receptionist of Ram’s college. Then there are their friends: Vetri and his half-sister Reshma, and Malli who is a transgender. An old woman, who is called Paatti (grandmother) by everyone and is the owner of the house where three of the characters live, has an enviably thrilling role in the plot.   In one of the first chapters, Ram and Anandhi lock horns over a trifle. That leads to some farcical action which agitates Paatti’s bees which in turn fly around stinging everyone. Malli, the aruvani (transgender), s...
8 comments
Read more

A Curious Case of Food

From CNN  whose headline is:  Holy cow! India is the world's largest beef exporter The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon is perhaps the only novel I’ve read in which food plays a significant, though not central, role, particularly in deepening the reader’s understanding of Christopher Boone’s character. Christopher, the protagonist, is a 15-year-old autistic boy. [For my earlier posts on the novel, click here .] First of all, food is a symbol of order and control in the novel. Christopher’s relationship with food is governed by strict rules and routines. He likes certain foods and detests a few others. “I do not like yellow things or brown things and I do not eat yellow or brown things,” he tells us innocently. He has made up some of these likes and dislikes in order to bring some sort of order and predictability in a world that is very confusing for him. The boy’s food preferences are tied to his emotional state. If he is served a breakfast o...
6 comments
Read more