Where do you think the line between freedom and loneliness is?

I certainly don’t think of freedom as being an absence of commitments. Full-throttle commitment can be extremely liberating.

They are on two different spectrums. You can be lonely whether you are free or unfree. Freedom is about responding creatively to constraint. It is within your control whether you are free or not.

Loneliness is about connecting to others. That has to do with your ability to let meet someone else, establish a connection, and let them in. Loneliness and freedom have nothing to do with each other.

I don’t see the connection. Commitments are of your own making. Freedom has nothing to do with it.

I don’t think that lonliness affects everyone negatively. As an only child I created my own entertainment and enjoy quiet reading and other intellectual pursuits. I am never lonely.

Freedom to me is being able to live my life as I choose with as little interference as possible.

The two have nothing to do with each other in my opinion.

I think freedom and lonliness are completely different subjects. Apples and oranges.

Freedom is the opposite of oppression. It allows you to do what you want, without having to bow down to a master. (As a slave might)

Lonliness however, refers to a state of being. Being lonely isn’t inherently bad. Being oppressed is.

It’s also possible to be lonely even if you are completely free.

The line is one between categories. They are independent of each other. Different attributes of an observation. I doubt if there is any statistically significant correlation between them.

If you are saying being in relationships obligates you to be attentive and obedient to others and impairs your freedom, then I would say you need some different people in your life. Although, right now my husband and I are apart for a month, and I do feel free to do some things I might not usually do. But, overall my relationship with him does not really stop me from doing anything I want to do.

When we do things for other people because they are our friends and family, usually it is because we want to, so that does not impede on our freedom. We get a benefit ourselves of being with them, feeling good we could help, etc.

My mom likes to quote her mom: “If you have none to make you cry; you’ll have none to make you laugh”.

(She also says it the otherway round, kind of an all purpose quote)

@tups Can you explain a little more?

The perception of freedom that is inclusive of loneliness is flawed,

Freedom is knowing that you can have each and every desire fulfilled..

If one were to think that there is a desire that may not be fulfilled ,
there in the thought lies his enslavement.

So since the perception of loneliness is inclusive of limitations, then you are enslaved by that thought.

I don’t know about lines, but I do know that I’d feel more free if I wasn’t so terrified of being lonely. And I’d be less lonely, too.

Do you mean that, ones thoughts, morals and ideas can go against the grain, thus causing loneliness? That I can identify with. But I’d rather then be alone that sit at a fools tea party.