I Like To Share Profound Thoughts And Quotes

first off we are all chained down by our needs, wants desires, etc. and following the advice of siddhartha gautama, it is our very desire to be free that is our greatest chain.

i also think definitions are important in a situation like this.

ignorance: all of us. old lady with the mind of a ten year old. old man with a phd in physics. new born baby. all ignorant to varying degrees. shall we then create an ignorance scale? i say, ignorant all. who among us can ever know 1/1,000,000,000,000.00 (sorry don't know my powers of ten keyboard shortcut) of all there is to know? therefor i suggest ignorance and knowledge have nothing to do with freedom.

happiness and bliss: certainly this could be equated with freedom, but is it really related? and if so how? i am struggling to see a connection at the moment. of course everyone wants to be happy, but is happiness freedom? is a drug addict that has got a weeks supply not happy? but we would all agree he is not free. so let us divorce these two notions as well.

so what is left? oh yes, freedom: perhaps freedom is no more real than our imaginations makes it? perhaps freedom is the ultimate illusion? perhaps freedom is just the most perfectly attractive an ideal that keeps us striving towards it, but ever recedes into the distance like the horizon? perhaps it is the greatest scam ever to be bestowed on us by our forbearers in the same way the idea of heaven was used by the catholic church and other religions to keep us moving in the direction of someone else's desires? i don't know, i just think it is important to question it.

all that being said:

"It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees." -- Emiliano Zapata. ...

Joey... there is a difference between being free and being ignorant. Ignorance might be a bliss as an ignorant will be happy ignoring the existance of any sorrow in life. I am not seeking ignorance to life, on the countrary, I am able to acknowledge what chains me. We are all born with a burden, a cross of what is expected from us by others, and as time passes and you grow older you become more aware of the chains holding you down. I don't care to face the cross of my own mistakes, and I don't care to bear the weight of my own demise, as long as I'm being held down by my own chains and not the one put around my neck by others. Every rule in life is followed by a chain, I agree there must be an order if society should work (although it doesn't work as expected) but the rules around us placed by abusive men from previous centuries are not something we should have to endure.