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What's your excuse for not training horse carries?
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hey
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To define freedom as independence hides a dangerous misconception. Absolute independence does not exist for man (a finite being who depends on nothing would be a being separated from everything—that is, removed from existence). But there exists a dead dependence that oppresses him, and a living dependence that allows him to flourish. The first of these dependencies is slavery; the second is freedom. A convict depends on his chains; a farmer depends on the earth and the seasons: these two expressions describe very different realities.
Let us return to biological comparisons, which are always the most enlightening. What does it mean to 'breathe freely'? Perhaps that the lungs are absolutely 'independent'? Not at all: the lungs breathe more freely the more solidly, the more intimately they are connected to the other organs of the body. If this connection loosens, breathing becomes less and less free and, at the limit, it stops altogether. Freedom is a function of vital solidarity. But in the world of souls, this vital solidarity bears another name: it is called love. Depending on our emotional attitude towards them, the same ties can be accepted as vital bonds or rejected as chains; the same walls can have the oppressive harshness of a prison or the intimate sweetness of a refuge. The eager student runs freely to school; the true soldier lovingly adapts to discipline; the spouses who love each other flourish in the 'bonds' of marriage. But school, the barracks, and the family are horrible prisons for the student, the soldier, or the spouses without vocation.
Man is not free in the measure in which he depends on nothing or no one: he is free in the exact measure in which he depends on what he loves, and he is a prisoner in the exact measure in which he depends on what he cannot love. Thus, the problem of freedom is not posed in terms of independence, but in terms of love. The strength of our attachment determines our capacity for freedom. However terrible his fate, he who can love everything is always perfectly free—and it is in this sense that one speaks of the freedom of the saints. At the opposite extreme, those who love nothing may well break chains and make revolutions: they remain prisoners. At most, they manage to change their slavery, like an incurable patient turning restlessly in his bed.
– Gustave Thibon, Return to Reality
Let us return to biological comparisons, which are always the most enlightening. What does it mean to 'breathe freely'? Perhaps that the lungs are absolutely 'independent'? Not at all: the lungs breathe more freely the more solidly, the more intimately they are connected to the other organs of the body. If this connection loosens, breathing becomes less and less free and, at the limit, it stops altogether. Freedom is a function of vital solidarity. But in the world of souls, this vital solidarity bears another name: it is called love. Depending on our emotional attitude towards them, the same ties can be accepted as vital bonds or rejected as chains; the same walls can have the oppressive harshness of a prison or the intimate sweetness of a refuge. The eager student runs freely to school; the true soldier lovingly adapts to discipline; the spouses who love each other flourish in the 'bonds' of marriage. But school, the barracks, and the family are horrible prisons for the student, the soldier, or the spouses without vocation.
Man is not free in the measure in which he depends on nothing or no one: he is free in the exact measure in which he depends on what he loves, and he is a prisoner in the exact measure in which he depends on what he cannot love. Thus, the problem of freedom is not posed in terms of independence, but in terms of love. The strength of our attachment determines our capacity for freedom. However terrible his fate, he who can love everything is always perfectly free—and it is in this sense that one speaks of the freedom of the saints. At the opposite extreme, those who love nothing may well break chains and make revolutions: they remain prisoners. At most, they manage to change their slavery, like an incurable patient turning restlessly in his bed.
– Gustave Thibon, Return to Reality
31.03.202523:27
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