(a Steinbeck classic about several individuals’ dreams of freedom and their various limits and limitations)
Each person has limits, limitations, and whatever freedom/s. In the context and process of each of our lives, we bump into these limits on a daily basis. Sometimes the limits are interior (self-caused/generated), other times external (caused by others or various outside situations and contexts).
I think what most of us want is pretty much what you see in the free play of a toddler (which is why many people revert to childish behaviors, incidentally). We desire to be free to pursue (what I call elsewhere in this blog) our projects and processes, without interference from others or external forces and agencies.
I think you can catch glimpses of this child-like freedom in the experience of love, for instance, when two people ‘play’ and free each other’s (what I would call) inner child. Something there is, very deep, which wants to be that free all over again (even to have, say, the freedom often experienced in university life).
And so, daily, we are happy for and look forward to our freedoms–whether it is the life we lead after work, the free coffee paid forward, or the anticipated holiday or trip.
Freedom, then, is largely the goal of many people in our society and world.
I will just add that freedom is also an inner experience, which may in fact be more important and potentially satisfying than any of the external ones exampled above. (We do, after all, live and experience largely ‘inside’.) The freedom to imagine and express is a very heady one, indeed.
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N.B./ We are all, at any given moment, either limited or free in many ways. How we feel about these is potentially a catalyst for change, improvement, and betterment. And certainly, each person’s notion or conception of freedom will vary from one individual to the next. (As seen in the different dreams of the characters in Of Mice and Men).