Free will or free will… ?
Free will.
What a simple two word sentence and still, so powerful meaning. Free will comes to us when we are born and stay with us until we die. Sometimes the free will is not as free as we think, as children we heard the words ‘eat that vegetable or you will see’ from our parents and obviously, we all do as we learned in our youth, so that is sometimes the free will does not apply. However sometime you had a free will, ‘belt or spoon… apology or no TV…etc’ was the free choice we sometimes had as children. Now as adult I do understand the hard choice our parents had to make, while offering us those choices, since you love your children and being hard on them is one of the hardest decision, that parents have to make but necessary for the sake of children future.
When we are young we sometimes, actually most of times do not understand the reasons behind those decisions of free will but as my Dad once told me after I did something he was not proud of and my excuse was ‘they did it too’ he just look at me and said ‘if they jump off the bridge and kill themselves, you do that too..?’ and since then I knew what a free will is.
Now, watching the world go by, I see that more of people should have someone who will ask them that question. It looks like everyone just jumping off the bridge without pausing and thinking about the consequence. Everyone listen to experts, politicians and especially big brother TV on what to think and do, without pausing for a moment and maybe discuss it with friends, family and older people. There was this document on NHK about the young people living as single and fulfilling their dreams but not marrying and having kids. The reporters went to ask elders on the street, what they think and one response struck me ‘ They are denying their own lives and human lives as a whole. The young can’t comprehend what that means.’ Everyone including me, thought when we were young that we know best and that old people are rigid and don’t understand the world. The answer above could be used as starting point of thinking about the life in general and about free will to make choices and maybe not only for young people but for everyone as it is seems like we cannot comprehend what the free will means and entails.
I see that free will is no longer valued as the society is splitting under the divide and conquer rule, which is slowly but surely forced on population across the globe. We all have free will in relation to our choices and they are all noted in Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 10 Dec 1948. Two Articles 3 and 5 for example, stating that we all have right to life, liberty ‘what means freedom’, security of person and that no one should be subjected to degrading treatment. However I think that this no longer the norm and that no one is aware of such rights. We are now being subjected to degrading treatment but very clandestinely, under pretense of safety and security. The free choice is now no longer in question as the Fear Factor replaced he free will. Society is getting divided on ‘them and us’. Pressure to comply is bigger than one own decision making ability.
I’m too young to remember the time before the Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed but as I’ve learned in school about history and after reading books about WWII, one book sticked in my memory ‘ The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’ by William L. Shrier and I feel like the history is repeating again, this time just bit more finesse and gentle way but with the same goal in mind as it was in 1934 to 1945. That is why he Declaration of Human Right was created, so we as humans will learn from the history and not repeat the same mistakes. Also I’m old enough remember one party system with one truth in communism and I think that one truth system is very dangerous. The feeling I have now is that the name of the enemy has changed but strategies are the same. Make people fear something and then they will do anything they are told is the solution to the fear situation.
Society is divided and those who are still exercising the free will are labeled as conspiracy theorist, enemy of the society etc, etc.. but I think that history showed us, that usually those who are in minority, are those who are right. It is hard for them to be seen and heard as they might be drowned in the mass of the conformist and enthusiasts. Only history will tell who was right and who was wrong but as the history is written by winners, even this might be not fully true as they write the history to suit the agenda / goals. The description of human events is better term but really easily interchangeable with history, depending on what is more suitable. The elders are the sources of human events as they tell the stories as they happened and not as they were written by winners. Maybe we could focus more on the description of human events rather than on breaking news, which we are overloaded with so much, that it is really hard to search and find real journalism.
Sadly our free will of choice is not so free at the moment, since people are being punished by exercising free will. Example could be the current vaccination fever, this is individual choice based on free will but when someone exercise the free will, he / she is being punished by not allowing into restaurants, countries when travelling and by pointing fingers on them by others. I do remember when we were told that democracy is freedom, that you can do travel freely, exercise freedom of speech under democracy but maybe, just maybe it is not as it seems. Massive protests in 2019 gathered momentum as people exercised free will by protesting and demanding change all over the world at once but it was conveniently stopped in 2020 by COVID and since then fear replaced the free will.
So, dear free will, Quo Vadis...?
