Freedom vs Destiny

It seems to me that some of us are more guided by a mode of living that is more geared to destiny or fate than freedom. What is the connection between the narrative sense, having a coherent history, and fate vs living moment-to-moment, making "free" decisions, but only in an ahistorical almost dream like state of freedom? This type of freedom seems analagous with me to spirit. And a quote comes to mind, probably Kierkegaard, out of nowhere, "anxiety (or freedom?) is a qualification of a dreaming spirit..." I'll have to search through my quotes on the blog to find the exact words on that, but it will be well worth it in this context and considering how fortuitously this quote popped into my head.

If the goal of life is to refine us, to test us, then you may see how unsubstantial are these free moments of decision, so light and airy, so devoid of matter and of bodies, of the corporeal, yes, indeed the ethereal moments of decision, vision blurred as if in a dream, not even the visual field having a concrete anchor. It feels foregin to have decisions made in such a "lightweight" manner - yet this is what freedom (of decision making) in an existential sense conjurs up inside me. The choices that matter. The choices that define us, where we pick one side or the other - indeed, the either/or of Kierkegaard perhaps?

Some of us may have had cookie-cutter, Normal Rockwell histories and rational lives that make sense. Others of us will be dreaming travelers, but they will be free. Those with histories will be good story tellers and the dreamers will be poets and philosophers.

I had a dream the other night that effected me, as amazing as dreams can be. In between the chaos and the bizarre setting of a grocery store near where I grew up and frequented often, as I jostled elbows at a table for some bizarre reason with lawyers, I stood up and told them "The first shall be last and the last shall be first." I haven't read my Bible in a year or more. I also sensed the sadness of aging and the passing of time. I am getting older, my parents are getting older. Those childhood experiences every day acquire more dust, become less relevant, less relatable. People move out of neighborhoods. But the memories remain and float around in warm cheery little voids in our imaginations, where the candle still burns eternally. Freedom is a qualification of dreaming spirit.

I am absolutely of the mind that the experiences we live, and I mean the good ones, the love that we experience, live on in a real and meaningful way. It is and always will be connected with us, even after we leave this world and those neighborhoods behind.

[update] 12/9/11, found the quote:

"Anxiety is a qualification of dreaming spirit, and as such it has its place in psychology. Awake, the difference between myself and my other is posited; sleeping it is suspended; dreaming, it is an intimated nothing. The actuality of the spirit constantly shows itself as a form that tempts its possibility but disappears as soon as it seeks to grasp for it, and it is a nothing that can only bring anxiety. More it cannot do as long as it merely shows itself. The concept of anxiety...is altogether different from fear and similar concepts that refer to something definite, whereas anxiety is freedom's actuality as the possibility of possibility. Fore this reason, anxiety is not found in the beast, precisely because by nature the beast is not qualified as spirit." -Soren Kierkegaard under pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis The Concept of Anxiety

and another

"Anxiety is neither a category of necessity nor a category of freedom; it is entangled freedom, where freedom is not free in itself but entangled, not by necessity but in itself. If sin has come into the world by necessity (which is a contradiction) there can be no anxiety. Nor can there be any anxiety if sin came into the world by an act of an abstract liberum arbitrium." -Soren Kierkegaard under pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis The Concept of Anxiety

Profiling and stereotypes

These days it seems like the entire legislative and political processes have gone stark-raving mad. The same voters, I assume, that elected Bush Jr to a second term elected Obama and wait for change, only to get bad changes. The middle class continues to have to struggle to even get unemployment benefit extensions approved, while savers are punished with rising inflation due to government printing and bailouts to big bank cronies. Nothing "changed" on that front.

Once again, I digress. Today's topic is "profiling." It is a constant buzz-word, as constant issue is taken with various forms of "profiling" by groups from the hispanic community related to anti-illegal immigration to muslim/arab/middle eastern profiling at the TSA.

Guess what, we are all profiled and profile on a constant basis. When you get ID'd to buy cigarettes or alcohol, you have just been profiled. Some clerk at the counter is forming a subjective picture of what you "look like" and making certain assumptions as to your age. This is just one small, quite everyday example, of how profiling occurs everywhere already.

Granted, to live in a society we give up certain rights willingly. We agree to produce identification to the police when requested. People typically understand that the greater good requires their compliance. Except, it would seem, when really IMPORTANT issues like terrorism, rather than underage smoking, necessitates the profiling.

If you want to know my opinion, if you are in the USA, you implicitly agree to abide by the laws, assuming that the law is reasonable and just (perhaps there are better, more to the point terms than "reasonable and just" but I don't have the time to figure them out). I add this caveat to allow for the possibility of conscientous objections or civil disobedience should the law of the land become corrupted and unjust. However, removing one's shoes or burkah at the airport, even having to undergo a more thorough airport screening due to being "profiled" as being of middle eastern or arabic descent, to me is eminently reasonable in a post 9/11 world.

Granted, the anti-illegal immigration profiling fears are a bit more complex. I would guess we can thank our legislators for the fine mess we find ourselves in after decades of looking the other way to illegal immigration.

My main point is that profiling happens daily in many different ways, and I think that people in society generally are ok with it, as long as they understand that they are complying with requirements for the greater good of society (ie safety from terrorism). It is a delicate issue, and those doing the "profiling" need to be well trained and to know the reasons they are doing whatever it is they are doing, and the extent of what they need to know and are authorized to do. Profiling should never give anyone a blank check to violate a person's constitutional rights, but needs to be very specific. Whoever is doing the profiling also needs to be aware of their personal biases. In fact, in the case of security work, this is absolutely something they need to be aware of, lest the would be villans play the security forces for their very own stereotypes.

Forgive me if I am fed up with the constant debate and whining over vital measures for national security, while at the same time government aims to dig its hands even deeper into your life, from charging higher premiums to uninsured smokers, to requiring you to have health insurance, these are definitely topics for other posts. You shouldn't be upset about securing the borders or profiling at the airport. These are matters of national security. You should worry about laws that would require you to eat a certain diet, not smoke, wear your seatbelt, have health insurance, in short, make every decision you make a matter of government, and probably tax it to further divide the uber-rich from the poor, or to make Goldman Sachs quarterly profit tick up another few percent over analyst estimates.

The title of this post should have been back-assward, as that is quite what I think of the voting public.