We've all heard the tale of a man who had been imprisoned in a cell for years and years. When at last they opened the cell door and offered the man freedom, he refused to leave. He stayed in his cell because he was safe there, and secure. Freedom doesn't give us the choice of what happens to us. However, we do have a choice about how we will react to it.
The necessity of freedom is hard to explain. I guess the question is: Are you a person with volition and maybe some stubbornness and at least the capacity if not the actual determination to do something surprising, or are you a tool? A tool just serves it's user. It is only as good as the skill of it's user and it's not good for anything else. So if you want to accomplish something - something more than you can do for yourself - you can't use a tool. You have to use a person and hope the surprises work in your favor. You have to use something that is free to not be what you had in mind.
Freedom is the key to all. The freedom to stay or leave, to work in harmony with others or to choose a more individual course. The freedom to choose the life before us, to help in the larger issues or to abstain. The freedom to build a good life or to live in squalor, to try anything or nothing.
How curious then, that so many refuse to accept the inverse cost of freedom: Responsibility. Freedom demands that a person accept responsibility for their choices, good and bad.
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