Freedom does not mean license but the wisdom to choose what is right for oneself

I live in a world where I am free- free to dream, free to will, express, choose, think, and act. Hence I am liberated to define MY life, the way I want. All I would like is what should be. This though apparently points at my story, but was created out of the minds of millions of my fellow beings who live in a free world, and take the life of almost everyone except self for granted. An adolescent of today, say me, would want to experiment, learn, grow, and take things in their control. This is how, we the youth of 2010, are trying to define freedom.

But the truth is: Living on Earth, dreaming of the sky

- We humans are not boundless, yet free. We are bound within the cobweb of prevarication, based on the land of distrust, standing upon the creaky columns of greed and disrespect. Take an example: A Student walks out of his house to attend the school, but quarters later, you would find him hanging around at a mall with friends, bunking school. On yet another incident the school allows bringing mobile phone on say, the farewell day, and what all it could be misused for, is well known. All this leads to, is adventure of course, but with it comes up a fear of getting caught, leading to a series of lies and false proceedings. With this the freedom of thought and action is lost to the regretful desires. We start running from our self and the freedom in actuality, the self respect is lost.

The basic right that our constitution offers is the right to freedom and liberty, and that life offers is the grant to opportunist living. We humans tend to cling to both, forgetting that our roots lie in the ground of action and reciprocation. Here scrambles up the question, is freedom itself unrestrained of responsibility? Is freedom equivalent to license to indulge into our dreams moving beyond the basic rights of others? Freedom does equate to rights, but license constitutes trespassing on the privileges of others. With our actions, we start playing along the supposed limitlessness as mere puppets to our desires: the conflict of heart and mind.

When even free gifts along the things we buy, has “Condition’s Apply” on top of it, how can we expect freedom to be price free? And to say, with the fundamental rights that we have, we also have our share of the fundamental duties- the ones often ignored.

 But why this question has been raised up today? Centuries ago, we were imperialized by the British. The world talked of freedom then as the basic necessity. Now Stepping into the 64^th year of independent India, and into another year of free living of our life, we are questioning the aspects of freedom! This is because the world has moved so fast to utilize the available resources and freedom, that we have forgotten the crucial aspects of this term: The wisdom to choose what is right for oneself.

Consider the young blood: adolescents, who are swinging by the thread of childhood above the pond of adulthood, trying to wriggle out to freedom. They are often targeted to be misusing freedom, and they do, but why? In trying to be their best friends, Parents have given up parenting! The children grow up in an atmosphere in which they are getting substitutes for the love the parents cannot give them in their busy day schedule. And this leads to the kid growing up to the teenager who expects the world to provide everything he wants. The perception of choosing right for oneself comes only with proper partnership and sense of maturity in the game of world. Or the excess of freedom, or appropriately the license, breaks away the serenity of trust. The abuse of autonomy is also seen in the contemporary world by the way the press and media rub over the social image and especially privacy in the lives of the Actors. RTI by no means gives anyone the right to intervene into personal lives of other, but this is debatable. On an another recent issue we find the freedom from casteism as our basic rights but the numerous cases of honour killings have proved the way people are ready take law and liberty in their hands. The illegal freedom that the government supposes to possess in the form of corruption, widely exposed by CWG is another piece to question.

We must not forget that no coin has one side, the counterpart always exists and so does for the use of freedom: for our good or bad. We may choose to follow or not the lives of the actors just to improve the ratings of the channels. It is always in out hands to use the RTI for the right purpose, to question the corruption in CWG. And the honour killings were obviously by the hands of humans who take liberty in defining Other’s lives.

Freedom in its truest senses is the expression of one’s emotions through words or actions, without restraining, or appropriately even interfering with other’s belief, dream, or the ability to think and hence react. Mahatma Gandhi had truly picturized freedom as equivalent to Justice to All, And Rightfully Standing Up For It. He once said, “Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.” Freedom is thus The Wisdom to Decide for Ourselves Not Others.

Every new year we step into a refreshing journey of our life which is supposed to redefine us as our age and bring about a new rhythm of freedom in our life. So let us at once breach the dam of falsehood and utilize the ultimate resource of freedom, to rebuild a free India, where independence is beyond definition- Freedom Is Discipline, The Wisdom to Characterize Our Identity!