Is there Freedom in confinement essay.

Is there freedom in confinement?

What is the purpose of life? What is the reason for our suffering, success, ingenuity? It’s quite the question to be asked, but there is a simple answer. If death its self is fear and theory than the purpose of life is that which we give it. This is the gift which separates a life where one  is living from a life where one is surviving. In the 20th century novels, Slaughter House 5 and The Jungle, we see how those living a life of surviving unknowingly implement a chain of human despair and suffering. Both authors exemplify the consequences of choices made in confinement and complete fear. Although the philosophies of Sartre and Kierkegaard imply that in the life of surviving or confinement you can find happiness and reason by escaping fear or despair. Consequences of these ideas and the ideas of Camus have unarguably made their faults quite obvious. In confinement and despair people become controlling, stubborn, and tyrannical. Greed surpasses values and people become self absorbed in the communities they are in. Everyday people are labeled charlatans to the narrow minded ideas of religion, government, and standards. Even as I write this paper I must bend the requirements and stretch the rules, it is what I must do to avoid despair myself. To lay faith in anything but yourself is simply naive, for it is only your mistakes and successes that truly define what you know. It was said, “Her life improved dramatically when she decided to break the rules and find beauty where she had been told there was none” (Unknown). If we are to truly contain a purpose and a reason for our existence than it is moronic to mistake rules and standards for actuality; they are simply indications that those controlling your future are labeling you an impostor to your own beliefs. It is impossible for us to live a life of freedom if we are imprisoned physically or emotionally. I will live my life naively, if that is what people consider it. Yet, I will do it in respect to those around me, with tolerance, acceptance, flexibility, and in all of this I will continue staying true to myself. In choosing to live your life you accept who you are and learn from your mistakes, you will become respectful to those around you; you will become humble and loving to your family and your friends. You will become accepting of peoples differences. The imagery that the novels and philosophies expose us to seem to imply that within confinement there is happiness and freedom. These images are not of people being free, they are of people resorting to only their ideas because they lose their concern for others. This confinement is simply a way of limiting your possibilities. In limiting your own you inherently limit those around you. No man should limit the possibilities of another.

Is it possible to live out our lives being successful and prosperous while being aware and respectful of those around us? To live a respectful life we must recognize that often, in our lives, it is safer to assume most words are better unsaid. In confinement and despair we see people close off ideas and become inflexible; they become controlling over those around them because they single out their way of doing things as the best. Often times this creates an aggressive method of expression one’s beliefs. When an idea narrows in the mind of one person they tend to become oblivious to the ideas of others. Why? It is simple, throughout history our failure to apologize and forgive and our distance from understanding and accepting one another has created ignorance. Ignorance that we, even today, excuse as human nature or part of life. These confined ideas and ignorant opinions are harmful to people. Some philosophers strenuously study people in attempts to explain what really makes us free. Sartre would argue that it is in confinement that we are truly free. That when oppressed we find who we are and we find the truth and acceptance of people for who they are. That in imprisonment we are mentally free. However, in his own philosophical writings he not only contradicts his point, but ultimately empowers a quite opposite idea. In the dialog of his story, the guards, who are simply implementing the confinement and mindlessly judging and executing prisoners, say things such as, “What happens afterwards is none of my business...” and, “They arrest everybody who doesn’t think the way that they do” (Sartre 14). The guards responded with a lucid oblivion as to why they were even imprisoning soldiers in the first place. While being unsure of whom the prisoners were and what they had done or even why it was wrong, they persisted on carrying out violence and hateful actions toward strangers. This absurdity is a direct result of confinement. If it were not for the confinement that superiors and controllers oppress us with than we would never conspire hatred and violence toward each other. The human became one of, if not the most, intelligent organism(s) on our planet. Though logically this could not have been so in order for us to continue to be as inconsiderate and stubborn as we are now. We were not made to be malicious to one another, but it is those who excuse profanity and defacing of others that make us harmful. Influenced bias is inevitable in the upbringing of youth. Though, if we do
not attempt to fight ignorance and mindless words with reiterations of peace and forgiveness, then we will both prolong its infectious ways as well as expose innocence and purity to its methods of destruction. In Slaughter House 5, the author, who is now notorious for his satire of society and war, sends a message of his own through the books character. He says, “ I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee” (Vonnegut 19). The reason this message is so important to me is because it clarifies my previous statement, “we will prolong its infectious ways as well as expose innocence and purity to its methods of destruction.”  What is a child to you, what is your limit as to what the potential is in a child? A child is anything, a child is a believer a dreamer, a child is a emotional mixture of influences and interpreted understanding of things that they see around them. A child sees the hate we embody, and if we continue to allow it, it will infect them as well. Every day we see adults confine children with their beliefs. We also see media narrow the vision of beauty and the qualities of being ‘perfect.’ How can we honestly say that in confinement we are free when we live in a society where our inability to truly be ourselves contradicts any definition of freedom. In confinement people use their ideas as excuses and defense. They solidify their beliefs and unjustly use them as weapons against others. If we are free in confinement we are becoming ignorant of those around us. We stick to our way of doing things and our beliefs. We become stubborn and controlling of others beliefs because we have confined ourselves to our own. There is no thing stronger than truly finding ourselves and finding what we believe in. But if we confine our beliefs and do not respect other people’s beliefs then we are infringing on the freedom of others.
How is it, that one can become so self concerned, so greedy and oblivious to other people?  Greed and imbalance of wealth has become a predicament for people in our confined societies. As of now it seems impossible to change the minds of those who hoard money and bathe in luxury. However is confinement the culprit of greed’s huge role in the thievery of everyday people’s freedoms? Have the egotistical tendencies and selfish actions simply been caused by confinement that humans went through themselves? We fight because we’ve been fought. We hurt others when we have been hurt. We judge when we have been judged. It’s quite obvious that the influences and actions upon us while growing up play huge roles in our personal morals and values. The confined materialistic ideas have slowly but surely destroyed a once prosperous society. Our emphasis on beauty and fashion along with our insistence on current trends has severely confined our definitions of values. In The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, the tyranny of those in charge of the meat packing industry, housing, and even small businesses show how sick greed really is. These people , these controllers or superiors, don’t have any concept of human values. Their confined outlooks of happiness involve money. They want fashionable clothes, flattering jewelry and accessories; they want cars and houses that reflect a superior status.  Those with money have the abilities to sway opinions and to confine the ideas of others who greatly need that money to survive. In fact, most people don’t even realize that the same money they buy phones with is the same money that others may be fighting to survive with. A socialist speaker in the book referenced a similar idea when he said, "'I find that all noble impulses of humanity, the dreams of poets and the agonies of martyrs, are shackled and bound in the service of organized and predatory Greed!'" (Sinclair 322). Today the structure of government and the power holders of many countries allow and assist the control of people by the rich. Why must everyday people fall victim to the oppressions advertisements and materialism create? We will never be free under confinement. We will never accept ourselves if we are told what we are is wrong. We will continues to confine the happiness of each other until those living a life of greed stop deteriorating our confidence so we consume their products. Their value is money, not people. If we let go of the confined ideas of materialism then we will realize true happiness is something inside of us. It is not about things. It’s about putting our puzzle together. It is about accepting what we are and letting that shine through. With that happiness we influence others to be themselves. We live with freedom but also with reason. We understand how important people are and how much fun life can be. If we succumb to the confinement of others we will lose values of community, friends, and family. If we let greedy abominations tell us we are ugly we are outdated or we are unacceptable, then we will lose our confidence. We will become self absorbed because we feel judged by everyone around us. Confinement is no source of freedom. It is only a source of greed, ignorance, and selfishness.

Many of today’s problems are direct results of past confinement. Today many people are overwhelmed by societal standards and criticism from religious beliefs and other personal values. Although it is often ignored, there our extreme emotional consequences to confining the beliefs of others. More so, when we actually can convince someone that being who they are is wrong. When the confined ideas of religion, government, and social standards or ‘norms’ become conflicting with one’s ability to be who they are, then confinement itself is not creating freedom it is creating a false image; one that may be liberating, yet additionally destructive to those around you. One of the most arguable forms of confinement is religion. However, it’s influences have caused it to often, more-so than not, play a large role in state and government decisions. When we fail to make a strict depiction between religion and state we form decisions that are supposed to be for the people. In reality these decisions are often made favoring the beliefs of a politician; each decision that is dependent on beliefs takes away freedoms of others. Kierkegaard put a lot of emphasis on  escaping despair with a leap of faith. In other words, a religious belief. He even says that those who makes choices on their own, those are the ones to, “ face the agony of having to rely on their own judgement while never knowing whether this judgement is correct. The despair one faces at this level is overcome only by a leap of faith that total infinite commitment to god” (Kierkegaard). The idea of escaping fear or despair with a leap of faith  is another example of confined beliefs restricting ones freedom. If we were to believe in ourselves we don’t question our judgement we don’t fear the lessons to be learned with our mistakes. Whether someone recognizes their own moral conflicts young or if they realize it later in life. This confined religion and use of societal standards makes it very challenging for people who have been raised a certain way to actually go the way that feels right in their heart. We create emotional pressures and demolish self confidence in people everyday. Religion itself is not wrong. Kierkegaard may very well be right that we can get through despair with total faith in god. However, if we are to teach the youth this in confined manners, then where do they stand when they disagree with the manner that is influencing them the most? It is quite possible to escape despair by choosing to accept and lay total faith in ones self.  For when we reach total acceptance of ourselves and understanding of the power within us choosing our own fate, we additionally accept our reality whether we are predestined to live it or not. Camus’ opinion on this is tangible from his work, The Myth of Sisyphus. In this myth we are told the story of a man who rolls a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down. He must then, push it up again. An excerpt from the piece says,

'I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy (Camus).'

We are not free in confinement. Like Sisyphus, we are free when we accept who we are and we focus on the joy in the moment, not our future fears. We are free when we fight to be who we are and when we have something to live or die for. Quite the opposite of Sartre’s story where the guy finds freedom because he had nothing to live for any longer. Humans do not need a leap of faith or another persons beliefs for us to get through troubling times.  We need to believe in ourselves. To be free, we need societies where people are comfortable to become free in being them self; a place where we are no longer strangers in our own skins.

So how can societies of millions of people be free while respecting the beliefs and freedoms of others? Is such a task simply incomprehensible? We fear complete havoc and anarchy nowadays, we fear that if we loosened the grip societies tense to control us with, we would act somewhat barbaric. Though like I have explained previously, this will not happen if we do not confine people’s beliefs. We will not be hateful and ignorant unless we are exposed to a source of this spite. We have reached a moment where we can no longer use confinement as excuses for our fears We must make drastic changes to fix what is happening.  One of my favorite stories explains this with a magnificent example:

The Starfish Story

By Loren Eisle

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed

a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean.

Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”

The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean.

The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”

“Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish?

You can’t make a difference!”

After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish,

and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said…”

I made a difference for that one.”

To me the significance isn’t just that the kid chose to do something so unselfishly. It isn’t that the adult was a bully to the kids wonder. The significance is similar to that of charity and that of the accomplishments of those who give up lives of wealth and take paths of virtue and recognize the values of helping others. This man came up to the boy saying something based on a confined idea that the boy couldn’t make a difference. The boy believed in himself and what he wanted to do and he pointed out to the man that it does make a difference even if it is only one at a time. Confinement is anything but freedom. We can’t be free when we are in rooms, rooms with millions of walls, each one pushing in on us at a certain point. We can’t be free where we are confined. We find freedom when we understand ourselves. When we recognize that everything that once may have been suffering is now worth it. It’s worth living for, it’s worth dying for. If we are confined from being ourselves happiness will become rare. We will fear death and we will continue to question our purpose of living.