Stone Walls Do Not a Prison Make

2023-10-26 · essays

Not my words: a quoted essay whose author I could not identify.

Stone walls do not a make a prison nor iron bars a cage

To be completely free, or to do something of your own free will, it is essential that you could have acted otherwise. If you cannot avoid acting in a particular way, then your action is not free. While it is generally understood that human beings have the ability to think and act freely as rational and moral agents, the common causal laws by which all human activities and responses are governed are incontestable. It is this conflict that provides the real problem of how we are free.

The moment I consider freedom, I think of myself as trapped in an elaborately locked cell:

I have a job I cannot leave

I have children I love

I have a wife I love even more

I have a mortgage

I have an injured knee

I am scared of change

I am ignorant of many things

I believe in God

I have friends, family, and an elderly neighbour

Each of these is a lock I have placed on my cell. There are hundreds more I have not mentioned. Given this, how am I free at all? In fact, have I not spent my whole life choosing to not be free? Is life just a path into a more and more restrictive cell, until I am unable to make any choice and am trapped forever?

In its purest form freedom is having the largest amount of potential experiences, and having the greatest physical and mental mobility to be able to choose from those experiences. Before I decided on all the things that locked me up, and decided on who I was going to be, I had this freedom. At the point where I reached adulthood I was able to look at the world and decide how I wanted to be a part of it. I could go anywhere, do anything, and be accompanied by anyone. The moment I thought about this critically, as to what I wanted or not, the keys began to turn in the locks – but before that, when I looked at the world to consider my choices, I was free.