Living Freedom

It has been raining for a week and it is finally sunny here today at about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. So it is a nice day for northern California on the Ocean in the middle of winter.

As I sat there in my hot tub (spa) at about 104degrees Fahrenheit looking at all the greenery and trees in my back yard and all the surrounding back yards I began to think of freedom and what freedom has meant to me in my life.

First of all, unless I had been born to parents with good trades in Seattle, Washington in the United States I likely would not have experienced all the freedoms that I have the last 60 years I have been alive.

I started to categorize all the types of freedom I have experienced living in America.

I start with childhood freedom which I think for me was epitomized by being able to lie on my front lawn in front of my childhood home and watch the clouds blow by on a spring or summer day in Glendale, California. As I grew from then starting at age 8, 9, 10 all the way to 12, I rode my bicycle( a constant companion from age 5) for miles and miles alone or with friends. I think these two things looking up at the clouds and dreaming of my future and riding my bicycle and exploring for miles around where I lived in Glendale were what freedom was like for me starting at age 5 but really being there for me from age 8 on. I consider myself very lucky to have grown up in the 1950s when I had so much freedom and time to think for myself and figure everything out for myself.

The next freedom I would call the freedom of High School and College. Though both are a discipline in the European and American cultures both provide both discipline and a certain amount of freedom of thought, exploration and often in my day that exploration led to meeting a lot of girls my own age as well. This was always a welcome if not confusing part of the freedom of High School and College.

After college, since I was not married until age 26, I would call this time of freedom the Petite Morte(the little death). However, all the dating and meeting women and going steady and heartbreak was not peaceful. It was exciting but I think only in ones late teens and twenties could one really survive all that excitement. Oh, we may want to believe one could live like that forever. But in reality that would only be a death sentence. The freedom to date any single woman that would date me that I also wanted to date I found overwhelming and not peaceful at all. I was constantly either in heaven(in love) or in hell(broken up). Maybe the freedom of both these states got me to the next one (a committed relationship leading to marriage and children at age 26).

And with this came the next stage of freedom. The freedom to have a happy time raising children. Though children are very expensive, if they are healthy they are incredibly fun and rewarding. I always thought when I was growing up that I could put off growing up sort of by reliving my childhood through my children. Well. This sort of works and it sort of doesn't. However, growing up with your children is such an amazing experience that for those of it suited to it nothing ever comes close as being meaningful in your life.

I have always identified with being a good father. I'm not sure I am or even want to be a good husband nor am I even sure I really know what that means. But if I and my best friend(wife) are happy raising a kid or kids together then we are happy and that is freedom.

The last freedom is the freedom of wealth. This is a very tricky thing. If you have wealth and then spend it all then you are poor or bankrupt. So the freedom of wealth is that you have to protect wealth, and to save it and to invest it or you have nothing. Once you do all that you can watch it go up or down in value but as long as you own it it is yours!

However, the freedom of wealth isn't for everyone. Because it just doesn't really work unless you are very disciplined in many ways and are either well educated or can surround yourself with educated people you can trust. Otherwise it is all gone very soon.

One definition of freedom I have heard is "Freedom is responsibility!" This in the end is what I have found real long lasting freedom really is. When one is young it might be the freedom to have a live in love relationship with someone your own age but in the end "Freedom is responsibility" but that doesn't really mean anything to anyone until they are ready for it.

It is my hope that all the good kinds of freedom fill your life and make your life worthwhile.