The long weekend gave me an opportunity to seek some freedom, from tech entanglement, from phones & social networks and from COVID born menace, the endless calls. I visited a location that had a very bad network and had no option than to keep my phone away. For the first few hours, I was feeling quite anxious for not being able to check my email or check the status of the posts that I had scheduled a night before or simply fidgeting with the phone. I realized that technology may seem to be liberating, but it actually enslaves, depriving us of what the real world has to offer. With no option, I started to think about the freedom one can have if we learn to cut ourselves from the clutches of the technology.
Freedom comes in two avatars, first is conditional freedom, the one which we get to enjoy only if we are able to fulfil certain obligations like, studying to get a job or start a business and then earn money, with the help of which you can enjoy some freedom (still strings attached) like being on a holiday, short leisure travels etc.
The second one is called absolute freedom, this one does not have any strings attached. We generally enjoy such freedom in our childhood, careless, free living. You don’t have to pay to become happy, to laugh out crazily, or spend endless hours doing nothing. Very few people are fortunate to continue enjoying absolute freedom even after growing up. Few, because they are rich or because they do not know any other way to live. Typically we would categorize the later in the mad people’s category and envy the former.
I had read this statement somewhere that, the best things in life are free. So I used my free time in thinking about those free things that would make me happy. I laugh maximum when I am with my close friends (something which my colleagues would never connect me with); love the morning walk, being in nature, sitting on the beach for hours, starring at the mountains and being lost in some random thoughts. There were many such things that are still free and can be enjoyed but those strings that we have tied ourselves with, don’t let us experience this real freedom.
However, freedom is also about perspectives. Two individuals with the same circumstances can have totally opposite views on freedom. One may feel enslaved and the other may feel liberated, without realizing the fact that, what we are experiencing are the outcomes of the choices we have made. Hence, I feel it is important to break free from technology at least for some time and reflect on what makes us happy, free, or discover what can help us go back to the absolute freedom state? Covid19 has shown us that there is no guarantee that you can enjoy life later, post fulfilling the obligations of conditional freedom. It is possible that there can be no tomorrow, enjoy what you have today.