Freedom is to many little more then a tacky advertising slogan or a way of wrapping the flags around their body. The concept of freedom never gets explored much in their lives, even though they are well aware of the concept and are often quite jealous of those who are more free then them.

I've always wondered what exactly it means to be free. I've come up with many theories, such a control over your own life, the ability to freely debate and talk about all issues, and rural freedom. All of these are interesting concepts, but few really get close to what freedom truly is. To be totally honest, I do not even know for myself.

I sit under the moonlight of a beautiful evening sky, and I wonder what freedom truly is. I realize that freedom is a matter of perspective and that you are as free as you want to be. Freedom is not about lack of restraint, but more of the opposite: when you are most retrained, you are the most free. A person who makes his own restrained choices is the most free of all. Respect and kindness ultimately breed freedom and control over one's own life.

The story of modern governance is about freedom. Remember, our government rarely steps in to limit individual action. The government only interferes when the people of a state decide that an activity is so intolerable that it must be stopped. It is too expensive to use coercion and methods of pain to force people to act, so instead government uses examples that make people act as free individuals in a way that government so desires. Government is far from perfect, and not all of it's decisions are about protecting freedom, but in general I believe it to be good.

Some of my most free moments have taken place when I have been able to say, this is my life and I am in control. I love being in a world that is only restricted by the limits of nature and my respect for it's existence and preservation. I love to go hiking in the woods, particularly in areas around the Hilltowns, where I can enjoy pre beauty, and not be limited by a specific trail, location or time table. It just feels so good and so free to be able to go out o a nice warm sunny day, heading west, having no idea where I am going, and end up somewheres and act in some way.

I remember countless days of driving around with digital camera in hand, stopping and snapping shots. Many of my photos do not come out perfectly, and as such get deleted, but most of the time my breath is taken away from the beauty that I live in. I love to drive wherever I want, and I love to be able to pull over to the side of the road and walk a little or just think and jot down a few notes. There is nothing like spring to remind me of freedom, as spring is a rebirth of both nature and my existence as a human being, after a long winter.

While natural freedom is great, there is another area of significant freedom in my life. It is my ability to think and my ability to transcribe my thoughts onto paper or digital form, as I am doing right now. It is difficult and troublesome to really describe the complex and 'irrational' world we live in on paper, but whenever I do, I see beauty and I see freedom. The ability to think freely and to dream is probably the greatest asset of the human being, and it maybe the one truly fundamental part of our existence. Until the days of 'Wessman Papers', I was largely unaware of freedom that thought and writing give to us all, but things have changed.

To write not only means to transcribe thoughts, it also means to be able to communicate thoughts with other human beings. There is nothing more precious then the ability to share and explore ideas collectively. If your ideas are persuasive, you may be able to make a change that not only effects yourself, but also all of the individuals around you. The Internet has helped to lead to a greater democratization of thought, especially when forums and other forms of easy writing are considered.

I look towards farms and agriculture and the notion of 'rural freedom' and rugged individualism as being another source of freedom. Individuals who live a hard life, directly working with and manipulating nature grow to be free people who ultimately control much of their destinies. I often fantasize about what the farm life must truly be like, but my actual knowledge and hands-on-experience are limited. The ability to think freely is an ultimate freedom. I just imagine that at least with non-instrumentalistic agriculture, there is a lot of freedom involved.

Politics are another area of freedom worth considering. Politics encompasses all, as all issues are ultimately political. Humans are in the end, social creatures that need to often act collectively to obtain other goals. The issues of politics are the same as the issues of freedom mentioned above, they involve everything from speech to farms to nature. Yes, politics often is centered around complex power bases, and often is a game, but political thought inevitably is about protecting and extending freedom as we it know it.

I can spend hours just dreaming on what it must be to be a truly free individual, one acting under no restrain but his own. I know that no such individual could ever exist in our society, but I can still dream of such a world. Utopian energy should be embraced, as while we may never live in a perfect world, we should strive for it, so our own world becomes more perfect. In my life time, I do not see myself or greater society ever overcoming the evils of late capitalism, but I think we can improve it. We can become more free, if we only try.