Freedom and Destiny

• • the individual’s capacity to know that he is the determined one.
  • comes from an understanding of our destiny: an understanding that death is a possibility at any moment, that we are male or female, that we have inherent weaknesses, that early childhood experiences dispose us toward certain patterns of behavior.
  • possibility of changing, although we may not know what those changes might be
  • entails being able to harbor different possibilities in one’s mind even though it is not clear at the moment which way one must act
  • This condition often leads to increase in anxiety, but it is normal anxiety, the kind that healthy people welcome and are able to manage.

  Freedom
• • It is the freedom of action—the freedom of doing.
  • can be limited by chains or bars.
  • the freedom to act on the choices that one makes.

  Existential Freedom
• • Freedom to act, to move around does not ensure this
  • The freedom of being or the freedom of the conscious mind.
  • cannot be limited by chains or bars.

  Essential Freedom
• Destiny itself is our prison—our concentration camp that allows us to be less concerned with freedom of doing and more concerned with essential freedom.
• • the design of the universe speaking through the design of each one of us
  • it does not mean preordained or foredoomed. It is our destination, our terminus, our goal.
  • Within the boundaries of our ????, we have the power to choose, and this power allows us to confront and challenge our destiny.

  Destiny
• May suggested that freedom and destiny, like love-hate or life-death, are not antithetical but rather a normal paradox of life
• Freedom and destiny are thus inexorably intertwined ; one cannot exist without the other