BECOMING MORE FREE

     This is an autobiographical reflection on freedom in my own life.
At each turning point in my life,
I have exercised progressively more freedom.
I hope my story will help others to become more free.

OUTLINE:

1. CHILDHOOD

2. COLLEGE

3. EARLY CAREER

4. FREE-LANCE LIFE

5. LIVING EVERY DAY IN COMPLETE FREEDOM

6. FREEDOM IN LOVING

7. FREEDOM IN RELIGION

BECOMING MORE FREE
by James Leonard Park

1. CHILDHOOD

    When I was still a child, I had almost no freedom
in the sense of making free decisions about my life.  
I was mostly the product of my genes and environment.

    I can remember wanting to be like the other people around me:
I wanted to wear jeans to school
because that is what all the other boys were wearing.
I did not want to be odd or out-of-step with the others.  
Later this desire to 'fit in' diminished and eventually disappeared.
I no longer try to conform to any set pattern of appearance and clothing.  
Rather, I am pleased when it becomes clear that I am not conforming.

     Do you remember moments in childhood when freedom was emerging?
Perhaps it was first merely a rebellion against authority.
But later, even as a child, were you beginning to invent yourself
in the process of making free choices?
Can you identify any important turning-points in childhood
when you decisively began to use your freedom?



2. COLLEGE

    Somewhere in the process of becoming more adult,
I have developed a strong capacity to resist social pressures.  
I could have gone in the other direction,
fulfilling the expectations of my culture for what an adult is supposed to be.  

    I went thru many years of education because it was expected of me.  
I just never considered dropping out of school
and doing something else with these years of my life.  
But I used my years of education
for purposes beyond the expectations of my culture.  

    For example, I began my college education in the Institute of Technology
at the University of Minnesota, planning to become an electrical engineer.
I knew from my high school education that I was good in the sciences.
And this seemed to be a good career-path for me to follow.  
If I had followed that prescribed path,
I would have spent my adult life in jobs
that called upon the abilities I learned in that technical training.  

    But in the middle of my four years of college,
I decided to change my career-path radically:
I decided to become a minister rather than an engineer.
So I switched my major from engineering to philosophy.  
I did not tell my family about this change
until after I had already moved into what is now the College of Liberal Arts.  
   
    I do not think there was any pressure on me to make this change.  
But I see that I was selecting one of the career-paths
that was ready-made before I came along.
What it meant to be a Methodist minister was well defined.  
Four years of college were required,
followed by three more years in seminary to earn a Master of Divinity degree.  
I followed this new path by exercising my developing freedom
to choose among the alternatives before me. 

    Perhaps you also had a radical change of direction during college.
In those years of preparing,
did you make important decisions
that shaped the rest of your life?

3. EARLY CAREER

    After I got my MDiv from Union Theological Seminary,
I followed the expected path into the ministry of the United Methodist Church.
I served two rural churches in Minnesota
while at the same time being Methodist Campus Minister
to two colleges in Northfield, Minnesota
—namely Carleton College and St. Olaf College.  
   
    These were free choices in many respects.  
But I was still to some degree following a career-path
that existed before I decided to go that way.  

    After one year in this Methodist ministry,
I announced that my second year would be my last.  
I wanted a full-time campus-ministry position.
And if that could not be provided, I would create my own.  

    No such position was offered,
so I stepped down from my two jobs without any offers of new employment.  
Looking back on this retirement 50 years later,
it does seem to be a courageous choice,
a dramatic exercise of freedom going beyond any prepared path. 

    When you look at changes in your own employment history,
did those choices manifest your freedom?

4. FREE-LANCE LIFE

    Since that retirement at age 27, I have not held any other full-time jobs.  
So my career lasted only two years.  
Since then I have done things that seemed right and meaningful to me.
I started by teaching in the Minnesota Free University,
an activity I had already tried in small ways while I was in Northfield.
Both Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges had small free universities,
which were run by the students—without credit, tests, grades, etc.  
   
    Each class I offered in the Minnesota Free University was invented by me.
There were no established classes that I stepped into,
which would have been the case
if I had taught in any ordinary educational institution.
I offered classes in subjects that interested me.
Some classes did not draw enough people to make them viable.
But most did prove to be meaningful for everyone involved.  

    It was in the process of offering these Free University classes
that I began to write my books.  
I also offered adult education classes in some other organizations.
This was a very free time of my life.  
And I was never tempted to return to an established career-path.

    The teaching dimension of my life largely disappeared
when the apartment building where I was living burned,
which destroyed the means of carrying on that dimension of my life.  
But I did salvage copies of all of my book then in print or in progress.  

    And since then, reading and writing have been my main activities.  
The books I produced were not expected by anyone.
Some have been ignored by everyone who learned about them.
But some of my books have continued to sell
ever since they were first produced.
The readers continue to make a free choice to read what interests them.
And I produced new editions of most of the books that sold out.
(Here is the index of all of my books in print.)

    Have you ever stepped completely outside
the career-paths available to you?
Are you creating a pattern of life that did not exist before you invented it?

5. LIVING EVERY DAY IN COMPLETE FREEDOM

    I began to write this on-line essay
as a way to encourage others to exercise their freedom.
But it has turned into a kind of short account of my life.
However, it does illustrate freedom at every turning point in my life.
I decide what to do with my life every day.  
When I wake up in the morning, there are no requirements.  
I have been retired since age 27.  
This means that my time belongs to me.  
I am free to pursue whatever purposes seem meaningful to me.  
The expectations of other people do not shape how I spend my time. 

    I can evaluate each hour of my life:
Was this hour well spent?
In every present moment as it passes, I can ask:
Am I doing what I want with my life?
Am I pursuing meanings I have chosen for myself?

    How free are you in your daily life?
Is there a list of obligations waiting for you in the morning?
Or does each new day offer more opportunities to actualize meaning?

6. FREEDOM IN LOVING

    Personal relationships is another area of freedom.
Until I was about 25 years of age,
I had assumed that I would get married and have a family.  
I postponed those dimensions of my life until I had my career-path settled.
But then I began to question that expectation as well:
Why do people get married?  
I have had a variety of good loving relationships during my life.
But I have never come close to getting married.  
Freedom also characterizes my personal relationships.  
I have written about keeping love free in my book entitled
New Ways of Loving: How Authenticity Transforms Relationships.
There is even a chapter called "Loving in Freedom:
Choice and Flexibility instead of Security and Obligation".

    Loving relationships do require meaningful amounts of time,
but if we keep our relationships free of patterns and obligations,
we can love in freedom, which is a theme of the book just mentioned.

    How free are you in your personal relationships?
Do the people close to you represent obligations and duties?
Or do you freely wish to be with them
because of the values you create together?



7. FREEDOM IN RELIGION

    Over the years, my forms of spirituality have also changed.
I can now look back on a period of my life when I was a committed Christian.
But after I retired from the Methodist ministry,
my views gradually became more liberal.
I joined the Unitarian Universalist movement,
where my views have continued to evolve.
Because this is a creed-free movement,
it has not been necessary for me to change my religious affiliation
whenever I shifted my thinking about religious matters.
My religious thinking is not shaped by any institutional commitment.
I am free to change my religious views as much as I please
for the rest of my life.

    Do you also have religious freedom?
Or does your commitment to a specific religion limit your thinking?
In what ways have you departed from the faith of your childhood?
What new changes do you foresee in your religious evolution?



    Work, love, & religion are three major dimensions of most lives.  
And in my case, I have been able to choose my own paths for all three
without following any of the expectations
that were present in my culture before I came along.

    Human freedom is not an automatic capacity of all persons.  
Rather, we are born with the capacity to develop freedom. 
In what degrees does your life story illustrate human freedom?

AUTHOR:

     Since retiring at age 27, James Park has been living
as an independent philosopher,
reading, writing, teaching, creating, sharing ideas on the Internet.
In freedom, he shapes every day of his life.

    Here are three related on-line essays by James Park:

Becoming More Authentic:
The Positive Side of Existentialism

Your Unique Contribution to the World

Pursuing Intrinsic Values:
Am I Spending this Hour Well?  


created June 12, 2005; revised 2-29-2008; 3-8-2008; 5-8-2008; 1-5-2009; 5-7-2010;
6-18-2011; 5-12-2012; 5-11-2013; 8-13-2014; 10-31-2015; 9-21-2016; 2-7-2019; 12-1-2020

If you would like to see a course description
for a seminar on Authenticity, go to:
Becoming More Authentic.

Go to the EXISTENTIALISM page.

Go to other on-line essays by James Park,
organized into 10 subject-areas.

Go to the beginning of this website
James Leonard Park—Free Library