R. U. FREE?

Perhaps, this is one of the great questions of the ages and a great question to start out the new year. We use and hear the word ‘FREE’ all the time. It applies to numerous facets of our human existence including: politics, marketing, time, work, religious beliefs, education, life and so on. As a matter of fact, before I started writing this article I decided to look at the definition of the word ‘free.’ I’m on a personal retreat right now over the holiday week and I don’t have access to the Internet except when I run out to a nearby place with ‘free’ wifi, so I wasn’t able to look up the definition on the Web. But, my friend’s house, where I’m staying on this retreat comes fully equipped with a good, old fashioned, unabridged, three volume, 1986 edition of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. So, I looked up the word ‘free.’ Wow! I had no idea how important and widely used this word is. I’ll have to check when I’m back to more Internet connectivity and see if more current dictionaries have added or subtracted any definitions.

This dictionary I’m using measures approximately 121” x 91” and each page has three columns of what I would estimate to be about 7 or 8 point type. The definitions of the word ‘free’ take up 21 columns – literally thousands of words to define the word ‘free.’ And if you add the variations and additional spin-off words that have evolved with ‘free’ as one part of the word you can add six more columns. I would have to say that a word and its derivatives that take up 81 columns in a book this size must hold a lot of weight in our society and language. It would be interesting to know how this word is defined by other societies and cultures like Russia, China, Cuba, Mexico, African nations, the Middle-eastern/Arabian and Asian nations and other cultures. Is the word ‘free’ and one of its derivatives, ‘freedom,’ as important to them?

Well, after going nearly cross-eyed attempting to read all that small fine print, I looked at another dictionary I found. It was a 1989, pocket book, 839 pages (of actual definitions) The New Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It only had two columns per page, but the type size seemed to be about the same as the larger dictionary. ‘Free’ and its derivatives only took up about 13 columns on a 63” x 47” page. So, I selected my definitions for this article from this version of the dictionary.

Here they are:

Free: 1. having liberty; 2. not controlled by others, independent; 3. made or done voluntarily; 4. released or not suffering from something unpleasant; 13. not restricted by conventional forms.

I also liked the definitions of the derivative words ‘free-born’ which is 1. not born in vassalage or slavery and ‘freedom’ which is 1. the quality or the state of being free, independence.

I selected these definitions because they best describe what ‘free’ and ‘freedom’ mean to me. It is not my intent to turn this into a political discussion or debate – although, politics, relationships, work and other facets of ‘freedom’ and being ‘free’ in our society are directly impacted by all of these aspects of life. My intent is to explore what ‘free’ means to me on my most personal level. What I seek, study, explore and discover is my own quest. However, I believe that I am neither unique nor singular in my quests. I believe that most of what I seek is also sought by most humans no matter where on this planet they live, what color or religion they might be, which gender or what age they are or their level of education. I believe that when we are born, at the instant we take our first breath and let out our first sound, we are the ‘freest’ we will ever be until the day we take the very last breath. During the time between those two breaths we will lose, or worse yet, relinquish much, or, in the case of probably the majority of people in the world, most of our ‘freedom’ to many different societal pressures. Those pressures will, of course, be based on where we live, the prevailing governments, laws, mores, religious beliefs, etc. that we may adopt or are sometimes forced into.

Some people will equate ‘freedom’ with amassing great material wealth and assets. Others will equate ‘freedom’ on the opposite end of the scale and seek to live with little or few of the symbols of material wealth. Most of us will fall somewhere between those two extremes and accept our position in life and seek security, rather then ‘freedom,’ through relationships with others including family, friends, employers, religious institutions and governments. And, to most of us, being ‘free’ and ‘freedom’ will, mainly, be words that we use as we have been taught to use them by our parents, teachers, religious leaders and government leaders, but we won’t truly ever spend time seeking the true meaning of being ‘free’ as it relates to our total living experience for the brief time we’re on this planet. We’ll accept what we have been taught and conditioned to accept as ‘freedom’ and that will vary from culture to culture, society to society and governmental regime to governmental regime.

R.U. Free is about my quest to live and work ‘free.’ It’s about my personal discoveries. It’s about seeking the truth regarding being as ‘free’ as I possibly can be during the rest of my life. The saying goes, “The truth will set you free.” I seek truth and I seek learning and living as ‘free’ as is possible in the world I have been born into and to assist you and any others who might want to seek this truth and ‘freedom’ for yourself. There are no religious, new age or political agendas involved in my quest. I don’t care how you believe in what kind of government or how you believe or don’t believe in a god or multiple gods or no god. I don’t care about your background, color, national origin, sex, education or age. I don’t care if you agree with my discoveries or not. That is up to you to decide for yourself. And, if you have something to share with me, please do. I look forward to as much input in my quest as I can receive.

That’s it for this time. I hope you gain some useful insights and that you’ll share this blog with others who are searching for their own freedom and may benefit from it. Stay tuned for more on R. U. Free in the upcoming postings.

Enthusiastically,
Ed