Liberty

Liberty has consequences. Man wants freedom, and at the same time he wants to be free from the consequences of his actions. These two wants simply cannot be reconciled.

It is only recently that I have begun to truly understand what freedom is all about, what it costs, why people are so willing to lay it down and what it takes to get it back.

Man is conflicted about freedom. Freedom is good, but we will lay it down in a heartbeat once it becomes too heavy to bear. We are tempted to lay our freedom down if someone offers us food, shelter and clothing. People have actually accepted slavery in order to fill their empty bellies and to get a kind of security from those who would do them harm. History is full of stories like this.

Sounds a little too familiar.

They want to be taken care of, they want to lay their freedom down, they want to be slaves. They want to be servants because then, someone else can take care of them.

We are all like this to a certain extent, we all have our own tolerance level of freedom.

The quotes are from this essay by Ronald L. Dart. I've been following his evolving understanding of freedom and how to get out of the bondage we all get ourselves into. This is a must read.