People are always discussing and wanting freedom. What is freedom? why do people want it? I think freedom is like a double-edged sword, not just freedom. Everything in this world is also a double-edged sword, for example, is Nuclear, we all know that nuclear can be used as a useful power plant, even in the Middle East using nuclear as a power plant. But on the other hand nuclear is also capable of destroying many humans if used for war. Likewise money, money is very useful when we need something to have, but money can also enslave humans.
Returning to the topic of freedom, this is very interesting for me, because in this 21st century, democracy is the most popular political system, even my country also uses a democratic political system, where people are free to express all their aspirations towards the state and government. many people are willing to die to fight for their freedom and their group. Freedom also includes the nature of human beings, everyone longs for freedom so that all forms of restraint and oppression fight for freedom. For example, the heroes who are willing to sacrifice their lives for the independence of the country and nation.
With freedom, humans can do anything, but it's impossible. Humans do not live alone, so freedom must be limited. Rules after regulations are made to limit freedom to create harmonious relations between all human beings. You can imagine if freedom had no limits, there would be great chaos everywhere, but that's not what I want to talk about here because everyone knows and understands that too.
I want to discuss further freedom, namely freedom of thought. I often shout about freedom of thought, for me thinking there should be no limits. In my opinion, God created reason and mind in human beings to be used properly and optimally. So, a restriction of the mind is blasphemy. Just now a question crossed my mind, why don't people want to think freely? don't they know that free thinking is a pleasure? why are they afraid to think freely? It is these three questions that I want to address in this article.
I asked a friend about freedom of thought, and my friend refused to have freedom of thought because that would distance him from religion and God. Reasons like this don't make sense to me, how could God hate his servants who think freely because God is great and all-powerful, so God can't forbid humans to think freely. Now that I think about it, what is the dark side of freedom of thought?
My wild mind replied all freedom has a dark side. Freedom creates personal responsibility, freedom of mind also creates moral responsibility for what we have decided. Therefore, free-thinking is not easy, it takes great creativity to take responsibility for all decisions and maybe a burden to our souls.
I once read a book called fight or flee, where a person makes a decision when faced with fear or threat. This is a natural response that exists in humans. I have noticed that many humans cannot resist the great power of freedom, so many people choose to run away and choose to take refuge in the mainstream to calm their souls and avoid the pressures of responsibility.
Without us knowing it, people have traded their freedom on a group teaching that they consider absolute. That way, they feel safe and not burdened with responsibility for the results of the decision. One of the teachings of groups who do not dare to think freely is religion because religion gives them teachings that are absolute so that they avoid burdens and responsibilities. I am a person who will never run away from the responsibility of freedom of thought because freedom of thought will enable me to see the world from many perspectives and also to be able to see the beautiful world from various angles.
The lead image source by Unsplash
This topic is very interesting, I agree that there is no absolute freedom, although there is, we do have to be responsible for the freedom that we consider absolute. This includes freedom of thought