Buzz
You don't need to look far, you can see for yourself that freedom is the greatest pursuit of young people today. Financial freedom, freedom to choose a career, freedom in love, sexual freedom... However, most people misunderstand the meaning of these two words 'freedom'.
During the days of youth, I learned that if life still brings an undesirable outcome, it's clear that I've still done something wrong or misunderstood something.
So after each failure, I often take some time to review my thoughts, reconsider each concept, and then spend a long time afterwards to self-examine the results of my changes. Only then can I be confident that the foundation of my character is solid enough to move forward without repeating past mistakes.
During that time, I discovered that many people still laugh and communicate daily using words they don't truly understand. This will gradually develop into a misconception or worse, make you a hypocrite in society's eyes.
Take, for example, the most typical case. 'Love' is a word understood differently by each person. Some understand it as an intense emotion they've experienced. Others, who have experienced broken relationships, understand 'love' as a sense of responsibility for both parties. For a large number of others, 'love' is simply a polite term to express sexual desire.
So when you ask someone, 'Do you love me?' you're unlikely to ever get a satisfactory answer. A vague question will never return a clear result.
Misunderstanding the meaning of freedom will also lead to equally serious consequences.
Typically, people understand freedom as the feeling of being able to indulge in what they like without any limits.
The concept of freedom itself in different languages brings different perspectives on this matter.
What is freedom?
[Free/Freedom] in English expresses the desire to go far, experience a lot without being oppressed, restricted, or bound. However, [Tự do] in Vietnamese, rooted in Chinese, carries a deeper inner meaning when it comes to the mindset that will create the foundation and strength for each individual to achieve freedom.
In our language, freedom actually means self-reliance and self-determination.
To understand the profound meaning of this, one needs to take a moment to reflect on the history of humanity to see this truth.
In reality, humans have always been quite fragile creatures. We cannot survive in nature like wild animals; in fact, we are even prone to becoming prey for many carnivorous species.
An elder once told me, if human civilization were to disappear now, beings as insignificant as you and I would probably last only a week in the wild. We wouldn't even know how to start a fire, where to find water when thirsty, or how to find a safe place to sleep in the forest. For instance, if stranded on an island, would you know how to husk a coconut by hand to eat? A week might be a generous estimate.
It's this reason that drives humans to regroup, specialize, complement each other to survive, and later advance to specialization to optimize intellectual development or production capacity. What binds everyone together from ancient times to now is the social system, the state apparatus, laws, cultural norms, and ethics... to regulate what humans can and cannot do.
However, every system has its flaws and imperfections. So, to enjoy the benefits of this society, each person must pay a price, which is the right to decide their own lives.
The more civilized society becomes, the heavier the constraints of humans by the social system. From feudal times it was the rule of gods and kings, in modern times, it is the constraint by economics. Everyone is a seller of some product or labor, and they will also have to buy goods or services from others. Children who have not become financially independent will always be constrained by their families.
Perhaps from thousands of years ago, humans have dreamt of not letting their existence, their lives, their happiness depend on anyone else.
This is depicted in martial arts stories about wanderers in the martial world, in the way girls leave their villages to be with the boy who moves them; or with people in a certain profession, living daily with the danger above their heads, they also long to break free.
To attain freedom, one must gradually tear oneself away from dependent relationships. The initial losses on that path are inevitable consequences, which no one can avoid.
However, right in the moment of realizing how fragile and weak one truly is, each person must learn how to become independent. Learn what they have never learned, do what they have never done, think in ways they have never thought, in order to become a more versatile genius, thus achieving independence.
When a person is young and still doesn't understand about others in society, also unaware of how this machine operates, the freedom they speak of is nothing but a greater desire for satisfaction. Sadly, without wealth, power, or courage, no matter how long the dream stretches, it cannot become reality.
As we mature, we learn the most basic things in life, such as recognizing bodily pain and knowing which medicine to buy, or cooking rice for ourselves and finding it delicious, then voluntarily cleaning up the house after cooking...
It's accurate to become someone who can take care of themselves, clean up the messes they create, take responsibility for their actions, not cause trouble for others, and understand that whether life is happy or sad, it's all up to them, that's when one truly understands that their life now is their own 'freedom' to decide.
At that point, once you have attained freedom, how far you go in life is entirely up to your will.
P/S: In this article, only two words 'freedom' are in quotation marks. Upon rereading, you will see that despite being just two words, they carry different meanings in different contexts.
An alternative perspective on the Essence of Freedom.
Posted by: Ánh Nguyễn
Keywords: What is freedom? How to become a free individual?
