Freedom

In responding to a comment, I brought up Taran's Constant - something I haven't really defined in writing until now. The general theory behind it is that there is an overwhelming amount of people who, no matter how good their intentions, want something for nothing. Robert Heinlen wrote in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress: TANSTAAFL. Expanded, it becomes There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

(If you want to know about the picture to the left, read Ownership.)

In a wonderful, happy-clappy¹ world things would all be free. If you wanted something, someone would give it to you or would not complain if you took it. Whatever you needed, whatever you wanted, it would be yours for the asking. Unfortunately, this is not the world we live in: Things have a limited supply, and as such there are people who fill the niche attempting to explain how things with a limited supply are dealt with by the descendants of those who used shellfish and stones as barter. These people are called 'economists', and are often made popular by taking very interesting and sometimes exotic positions on just about everything. Looking back at my life and knowing what I know now, I probably should have become an economist.

When I took the picture at left, I was struck by the look of the macaw as it looked beyond the cage surrounding it. I wanted to humanize it, make the picture some metaphor of imprisonment - my father detested birds in cages, as do I, and yet there is always the problem these days of something being set free only to be caught and imprisoned by another - be it an animal or a copyright or patent. We live in an era where ownership seems to mean capture, control, imprisonment - a sort of slavery in it's own right. As many people know, I'm a Free Software/Open Source advocate though I no longer belong to either camp - but the reason why I am is for much the same reason that the photograph struck me.

I just wrote of freedom. Now comes unfreedom.

The blue-grey tanager in the picture is not in a cage, it is next to a fence - it can easily flit above the fence, even through the wires if it so decides. It is free. But the owner of the fence is not.

The owner of the fence feeds the birds to vicariously enjoy their freedom. The owner of the fence lives within the fence of his own choosing - an unfreedom he chose through a freedom of choice.

How he likes the birds; he marvels at how fast I pull out my camera to shoot pictures. We discuss the other birds seen. We both know birds well; he from years of inviting them into his cage and I from trying to escape my own cage. My own unfreedom.

He is accustomed to his unfreedom. I am always breaking free. And like the bird, he enjoys my company, invites me in and listens to my stories of the other parts of the world - the parts outside of his cage.

To him, I am the bird. To the bird, I am him. To me, I am both and not.

Bardo Thodol.
Chonyid Bardo.

There is no owner of the fence. There is one who chooses to claim ownership of the fence, and the fence owns him.

And still, knowing that, I am both and not.

Sometimes you see an image that captures a certain sense of something that can be expressed in words but not fully conveyed through words. Freedom is such a word - an abstract concept that we all understand in one way or another.

The trouble, probably, is in the varying definitions of freedom and what it means to an individual.

The image, by Angelica (click image to see original) captures what most people could associate with freedom. There is a sense of freedom in this photo, something that can be taken away from the image by removing any one thing.

Space.
Movement unhindered in any direction.
Choice without the need for choice.
Options without the need of options.
Everything in nothing.