Freedom

What is freedom?
Is freedom the ability to do anything you want? Would this mean that people who want nothing are as free as they can be? They would be free from desire, that's for sure.

When you own something, is it really you who own it or does it own you? Maybe the things we cling to are reducing our freedom.

I believe that true freedom and free will are illusions. Maybe, the sooner we realize that they are illusions, the sooner we will try to obtain more freedom than we have (if we have any).

Free will is defined as the ability to make choices without constraints. Free will is in opposition to determinism, which states that everything that happens is determined by a cause. In determinism, your choices are illusory.

When people make choices, they are influenced by past experiences, by feelings and by reason, so, choices have causes, therefore, they are (at least partially) determined. If choices have influences, there is no free will. You can call it "influenced will" at the least.

I believe that we can get as close to free will as possible if we are rational. Of course, we can never be 100% rational, we are only human. We can never have free will, but some are more imprisoned than others.

To me, feelings are a sign of imprisonment, we are programed by nature to feel some things in certain circumstances, so being rational frees us from this natural programming. Feelings are not a choice, we don't choose to like some things, to hate others, to fear something, to be attracted by someone. There's no rational reason why you would feel more attracted to a beautiful man/woman than to a tree. Even judgement of beauty is programed, because, as you know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, there is no such thing as objective beauty.

To me, freedom is more than free will, more than the ability to make choices without constraints. To me, freedom is the lack of dependencies, the lack of addictions. Of course, all of us have dependencies and most of us have addictions. Our dependencies are food, water, air, etc. Our addictions are more diversified, some are addicted to shopping, some to games, some to drugs, etc.

Of course, we can never be truly free, because we will always have some dependencies but if we get rid of addictions and every possible dependency, if we are as rational as possible, then we can be as free as possible but do we want to be free?