The Paradox of Freedom Of Choice

"To think is to Realize the Ignorance that Deludes the Sense of Freedom"

"When you start thinking you realize you have stepped on the road to freedom, by the time the realization sinks in completely you have traded your one form of subjugation for the other, feeling contented that now you are free.May be we were all born to look for the corners in a circle."

Make people feel that they think and they will love you, make them think and they will hate you. I don't remember who put this intelligent notion to words but he was right for a major part of the herd, leaving of course those who could be clubbed as 'extremistan'. The above quote beautifully points out the irony and the resentment that goes along with freedom. I believe that once you have satisfied your basic needs which are the ones needed for survival everything that you do thereafter is a choice and thus a manifestation of your freedom. To make choice is to assert freedom is what I believe. But do you really wanna make it , Yes you think so, NO you don't want to, why? Coz with freedom comes a responsibility , a feeling which opens up each time you retrospect your decisions , you are encompassed in guilt feeling responsible for your failure , a feeling which rises each time you judge yourself no matter on the basis of whose standards your own or those you believe to be your own.

The principles that guide you now may not be the ones you followed when you committed the act currently in retrospection. These principles are your standards the lenses you use to look at the world around, the yardstick you use to judge yourself and those around These principles are your chains of freedom.

The freedom we so often talk about and believe to be each one's right is something probably very few of us understand in its true sense and its true implications. As Oscar Wilde put it "When God wants to punish man he simply answers his prayers"

The freedom we desire is one from responsibility, freedom from our own nature, freedom from our own self, freedom to not answer, freedom to do wrong consciously, freedom from guilt. But are these possible , can i run away from who i am , can i be perfectly logical and ideally selfish, an epitome of free dom.
I believe the answer is no. We all live with some form of principle guiding our lives consciously or unconsciously , chosen or imposed, rejoiced or suffered, This guiding gleam in our lives is both the support and the handicap of our lives.The fact that there is a principle which guides our lives means that there is an idea we believe which overrides our existence thereby crumbling the sense of freedom so far developed. To say I am free is to say I follow no rules , no principles. No principle overrides the choices[I make these choices coz me and others here on this earth are not immortal and i have a limited amount of time ,thus to choose and do what i like the most ] I make , but each of your choice has to be guided by a motive which in turn has to be guided by some form of principle thereby absolute freedom in life is a contradiction unto itself.

But the form of imposition laid on us is something we can undoubtedly choose. For instance you could choose to be a slave of your own impulses or the long drawn traditions , you could agree to submit before what others desire of you or submit before those same desires considering them to be your own, The choice we have now is not between freedom and 'no_freedom' but rather between the form of 'no_freedom'.

Choose your form of subjugation, the principle you would like to live by is the chain you have chosen to restrict yourself.