FREEDOM!
Freedom!
Sometimes I conflate freedom with free will, there’s a difference between the two of course. Freedom about the ability to move about and make decisions based on your own abilities and beliefs and free will is more so about if we’re actually making those decisions or if the events leading up to that moment are making us believe we’re making those choices.
Agency, autonomy, self-control, the ability to be present and to execute. It’s not strictly intelligence, although that helps, but it’s also about not giving up at the first obstacle. The ability to do what you know is right and not feel like you have no say in the matter. It’s the opposite of helplessness, the opposite of oppressed.
It’s about having the guts to stand up and say “NO!’ and assert your personal existence into this world. To respect yourself enough to know that you do exist and that you do matter.
We’re free to make choices.
We’re free to do this that and, yep, even the other thing.
We’re free to make good choices, and bad ones.
Don’t be stupid!
We’re all in this together!
If you need help figuring out how to know if a choice is good or bad you can start with Galatians 5:1, it’s in the Bible. Sit with it for a bit, then keep reading the rest of Galatians. The dude that wrote it was in prison when he wrote it. Once you finish Galatians, there’s more in that book that will point you to the freedom you can be sure of finding in Christ!
Did people in years past do more to respect the freedom of others, was it an expected right? is it antiquated to believe we have such rights?
I don’t think so.
Freedom takes a lot of shapes and sizes and I’m not sure what else to say about it. It’s a good thing, it’s something all people should have, and it’s something they do have. It’s not given to us from any man, it’s given from the creator of the universe himself. Our rights come from an inalienable source, beyond our own comprehension.
Be free my friends.