On Being Free

Let us live gladly! Quite certainly we are free to do it. Perhaps it
is our only freedom, but ours it is, and it is only phenomenally a
freedom. 'Living free' is being 'as one is'. Can we not do it now? Indeed can we not-do-it? It is not even a 'doing': it is beyond doing and not-doing. It is being as-we-are. This is the only 'practice'.
- Wei Wu Wei
'All Else is Bondage; Non-Volitional Living'

What is freedom? Can anyone define it for me? Is there a definition that holds true for everyone, or could two people from different cultures or regions have a genuine disagreement over what it means to be free? We fight for it. We kill to protect it. And yet, when asked, I think it highly likely that most could not clearly classify what quantity or object or concept they intend to kill for.

If our most basic, or indeed our only, freedom is to live gladly, why then would we need to fight for that? If being free is the same as being as-we-are, why fight? Is there a war or a bomb or a gun that will allow me to live as I am now, but more effectively? If being free is not something that can be 'done', but is simply 'being', how then can we do it better or more completely? For that matter, how can we do it any less? Is there anyone outside of the self that can force less 'being' on me? HA! Even Jefferson recognized the inalienable right of the pursuit of happiness, inseparable from the other fundamentals of existing. Who can take such a thing from you, and how would they do it?

So why can't we just live free now? I say to you that by living, and living gladly, we are already free. To strive for something, to fight for something, or to kill for something, I would hope that the thing for which you strive is attainable. Moreover, I hope that a thing for which you kill is, in fact, a thing that can be had. Otherwise, you throw life away in vain. What is worth fighting over? Does revenge increase your happiness? Does carnage? When you kill, is your mind not consumed with hatred? How much death before you will be satisfied? How much death will it take to make you happy? How much death to make you more free?

End war. Live happy. Live free. Be.