Freedom Is What Freedom Does. But What Does It Do?

Where is the point beyond which life ceases to be worth living?

The question must be answered before such situations arise

Everyone agrees that life is not worth living beyond a certain point. In an extreme example, nobody would like to live locked in a coffin that has just enough opening for air, food, water, and discharging the leftover at the lower end.

Is freedom one of the criteria of a life worth living? It certainly is. Moreover, if people could agree on where that demarcation line is and include freedom among their existential needs, they could never be enslaved. That’s when turning people on each other works against freedom just as well as avarice, fear (fear from poverty, illness, uncertainty, death, and whatever else), or mundane envy.

It’s a slippery slope, as everyone who has experienced the phenomenon of “boiling the frog” in practice knows.

People are easily lulled into daydreaming that if they give up just a little bit of this and a little bit of that, eventually, they will be left alone to pursue their mostly miserable little pleasures and live (un)happily ever after.

You must have your own principles, but here are mine, and they are based on hands-on experiences:

1. Life is not worth living, if I cannot speak freely. On the rare occasions, when I tried to comply with prohibitions of speaking my mind, at first, it didn’t feel like there was a difference, but once I realized that I was not supposed to say certain things, I literally felt giant fingers around my neck, literally choking the life out of me.

2. If someone wants to deprive me of human dignity, I consider it a direct attack on my life. (For example, I applied that principle during the plandemic and never wore a muzzle. For me, it was obvious that unless people resisted the muzzle, they would be slowly enslaved. That’s where I drew the line, cognizant of the possibility of six thugs dressed as highwaymen jumping on me in a grocery store which, luckily for everyone, never happened.)

3. I refuse to grant my approval of any self-proclaimed authority that treats me as if I were its property. As a result, I don’t vote, don’t fill out petitions, and don’t ask for permissions to live as a sovereign human being.

4. I reject all attempts at depersonalization; I am not a number in a pool of statistics. I do not participate in polls, which makes me less predictable, and thereby, expands my tiny range of mobility. I’m quite positive I couldn’t put up with making it any smaller. I do not answer “medical” questions about me, either. I do not fill out questionnaires, and don’t participate in “team work,” where nobody is responsible for their part in the process.

5. I cannot accept to be subjected to humiliating treatment on a recurring basis. For example, I don’t fly and I don’t join any groups or organizations, where I would become an impersonal entity, whose prevalent characteristic is his membership.

6. Could I comply with living in a world devoid of goodness and beauty in a technocratic system? (Those must be eliminated, because they cannot be assigned “useful” functions, and therefore, would render the system uncontrollable.) At the age of 19, as a result of an attempt at intellectual honesty, I started an experiment to lead a life by relying on truth judgments solely based on perception and logic in a positivist manner. After six months, I couldn’t do it any longer, because the resulting spiritual dryness deprived me of everything that was worth living for.

So, do I have a plan?

I am aware of my options and I know only too well that these can turn into life-and-death choices, but I’m still around and never had to hurt anyone. The first thing I remember, is the platitude,

But I vouch for life:

Where do YOU draw the line?