Humanity and Freedom

Humanity, when did it came into existence and what is its purpose?

First half of that question has been answered by science, religion and many other societies. But the second half of the question is yet a mystery to us.  What is it that drives us? We ourselves have claimed that we are the superior of all the living things. We claim that we are the free and above all the remaining living beings. We cage other animals and gaze at them whenever we want to. What makes us do that? The one thing that makes us do that is to prove the reality of our freedom. We need proof to believe that we actually are free. When we see a caged animal or bird, we realize that it has no freedom to do whatever it wants to do but we have such power. Is freedom has to be proved by something else or someone else’s suffering and inability to do certain things.

But what actually is freedom. It is just doing certain things that others cannot do or it is something that is beyond any other persons or animals sufferings. We all are bound firstly by nature, then by society and morals and most of us are bound by religion. We have made so many rules and connections that bound us and control our freedom.

Let’s start with nature. Nature has its own rule which is set by it and has not been changed at all. There has been certain minor alteration that we as intelligent beings were able to achieve but other than that we are still bound by the rules of nature. But let’s live the nature and move closer towards ourselves. We all have certain codes that makes us and defines us. And if you think about it you are bound by it too. If I try to do something that my innate nature does not allow me, I will fail measurably. Let’s take a example: I want to lie about certain things to my friends which will benefit or not but it might do harm to them. If my nature does not all me to lie or hurt other people knowingly then I would be never able to do it. Even if I managed to do it I will curse myself for the rest of my life and always will be living in guilt. In other words, I will never be free of that.

Now society and it’s morals. We created society when we needed them and also came up with moral grounds to help us or to survive. But the moment we created society and morals we lost our true freedom. We became the same animals that are caged by us but the only difference is being caged was not the animals choice but being bound by society and morals was our choice. But 1000 of years later we still are bound by society and we call it the civilization. We became more intelligent and full of knowledge but still we followed the rules and did whatever it commanded. What is it that shaped this human civilization? Is it the freedom or it’s the instinct to survive? It always was survival. So do we really know what freedom means.