Should nonexistence impede your freedom to take action?
Something doesn’t have to exist for a lot of people to talk about it. And when people talk about it, or think about it, it acts. It changes us. It changes the way we think. It is as if it was an independent agent.
So if you suspend disbelief and imagine yourself as something nonexistent, do you no longer have any freedom? Or do you have the same degree of freedom? Or does your freedom depend on something else? Then what is that something and how can you maximize it, thus maximizing your freedom.
Literal thinking will get you nowhere on this question, but it is very serious question.
Under the Orange Tree Productions
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If you are coming from a place of non-duality, then the answer would be…
There is no ‘doer’, only doing.
There is no “I” taking “action”, only action happening. ;-)
Freedom from self is the ultimate freedom, but that freedom then doesn’t belong to you. It’s the freedom of the leaf falling or the paint peeling or the duck swimming, free of any idea (even the idea of freedom). When the self tries to reassert its claim to that freedom, there goes the freedom.
It is a serious question. It began in the stone age with Cromagman being playful and people believing what he grunted even though he made it up. As we became more socialized we had lies being used to frighten others to give the liar an advantage. It became known that you only had to tell the lie (in secret) to one person in the clan and others would learn about it within a day. As communities grew, so did the people’s beliefs in non-existent things: the original lies plus new twists with more fear in them. And thus it has been in the minds of men. Rumors and untruths become faster held than the real truth. Over the millennia we have programmed our brains to believe what we hear more than what is shown to be the truth. Freedom is attained only by education and learning that everything you hear may not be true. Look for proof of any assertion that you question. And question almost anything.
If I was something non-existent, I couldn’t have had any control on the effects that I would have on others. I would then be a creation of the existent beings who could think, imagine and say anything of what I am and how I act. I could at once be a thousand different perspectives and have thousand different forms. There would be no inherent property nor characteristic of my own, except that I am non-existent and anyone could make me to be anything they liked. So, I wouldn’t have a unique form and get split up into as many ways people imagine me to be.
I would exist as alternate realities in the minds of people living the unique realities and thereby cause a great amount of debate and consume great deal of time. But I myself would have no track of time, no emotions and occupy no space. I would arise and vanish into a singularity. In between, I would reside within minds of people and possibly have a social and cultural effect on them. I would have an effect on the people, but only in the form of a carrier. The actors and affected would be the people themselves.
Existent things can be studied and observed and have inherent properties of their own based on the laws of nature. Existent beings think and therefore are. But non-existent things may be thought of and therefore could be. They cannot be without the existent ones. Existent ones, on the other hand, don’t necessarily need non-existent things.
Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose
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