Monday, January 01, 2018

The last human freedom

Today in my RSS feeds were articles about how Iran and DRC politicians/dictators are cutting off internet and mobile service to their citizens, in order to try and contain the violence being unleashed toward them (the dictators/politicians). Human freedoms seem to be under siege on this first day of 2018.

Everyone feels like their options and freedoms are being restricted at some point along the way of their lives. Of course this is a huge scale - it is one thing to be thwarted in your desire to veg-out and have some me time because of the needs/demands of your family for instance, versus being in a concentration camp and being systematically stripped of everything that makes you human. That is a huge scale.

On this later one, Viktor Frankl (Holocast/Auschwitz survivor) says, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." He meant this literally, that everything, everything can be taken away and was. Except the last human freedom - to choose your posture, or attitude to what is happening to you.

This is my greatest aspiration and my most regular disappointment in myself. Even though I catch myself quicker and quicker, I still fail to reign in my tongue and my thoughts soon enough many times. Here is my primary goal for the rest of my life, to enjoy this great last human freedom - to choose well how I see the events and their significance, that happen in my conversations and life.