What do you mean: "Innate freedom"?

Beating around the bush while hunting for that endangered species called 'innate freedom'

Skip: What do you mean: 'Innate freedom'?

Wim: Gosh, Skip, when you put your question that way, with that skeptical intonation
- I wonder if you want to really know what my view on innate freedom is or - if not that
- that you do not know what innate freedom is and you want to find out about it or - if not that
- that you actually deny the existence of it.

I'm not unwilling to answer your question... For now I'll just assume that you accept the existence of innate freedom while you actually might not know what it is but are interested in exploring the existence and characteristics of it.

Skip: I DO know what innate freedom means, or at least I have an understanding of it. I just want to compare your view with mine and discuss it further.

Wim: All right then, in your case then what I'm going to say might not apply, but I want to make a point about the tone of questions similar to your tone - the way questions are sometimes put: a rhetorical question type of phrase, a bit cynical maybe, like 'What do you mean?' with that particular disbelieving inflection.

Questions of that nature, phrased and intonated the way you did, are often not at all what they seem to be.

Too often have I gone into answering questions posed in a similar vein, when I subsequently find out that whatever I come up with in my answer, that the person I responded to, does a priori not even accept the possibility that the subject they asked about is a valid subject to be seriously considered. Some 'questioners' even deny the possible existence in reality of the topic they are bringing up. What they question is in their view only an illusive presence in some fantastic crevice of my mind - the mind of the person who they asked for an answer in the first place.

So Skip, that's why I have to ask you:

1.  Do you consider that 'innate freedom' exists in some form or another, yes or no?
2.  If no, I will decline answering you, as doing so would be to no avail.
3.  If you are not sure that 'innate freedom' exists, would you like to know if it does... meaning that you are open to the possibility of it? If yes, I will explain what I mean by it.
4. If you accept that 'innate freedom' does exists, would you like to know what my view of it entails?

Skip: I think I'm somewhere between 2 and 3.

Wim: OK then. Now, let me assume that I will answer you accordingly. At that point I don't mind if you would disagree with my view about innate freedom or my description of it, but I can not accept that you all of a sudden turn around and deny the existence of 'innate freedom' if my view happens not to be to your liking... In that case I'll just have to stop responding.

Skip: OK fair enough... So Wim, what do you mean by innate freedom?

OK... eh... well what IS it actually?

Wim: OK.

Now do expect some surprises in my answer… having to do with determinism. You may already have found out that I find all-inclusiveness of paramount importance, meaning that I can happily accept that innate freedom and determinism are not strangers to each other...

Skip: Well before you get to that - as I have heard you talk about helping people, I would like to say that in my opinion I consider it not necessary to HELP others to reclaim freedom and that I am very suspicious of people who claim to be able that they can.

Wim: Ah, well, if that is what you already think at this point, then my willingness to answer you is waning somewhat. But anyway, in my answer about 'innate freedom' I will discuss how that innate freedom (a birthright) can get and does often get en-veiled or obfuscated. I will suggest how it is possible that one can seemingly get estranged from one's innate freedom. I'll suggest how innate freedom is made to be seemingly hidden by and through external maneuverings: second and third party 'attempts' by people who are intent on interfering with the realization of innate freedom.

If what I propose is so - and I'll show that it is - then it may very well be possible that the reclamation, the un-veiling really, may entail also second and third party involvement (in other words 'help' of some sort to undo 'interference' of another sort) in the undoing of the en-veiling or obfuscation attempts.

But for now let's assume that that point is not clear as of yet..., but still..., for you to prejudge 'help' as unnecessary, precludes your open consideration of the validity of what I may offer in my answer. If that is so, why should I answer if it is already judged beforehand by you as dubious in some form or another?

Skip: ...unless you think that people should reclaim their freedom the way you would like them to do it.

Wim: No, I don't think that people should reclaim freedom the way I like it. The seeming loss of innate freedom - the relegation of it to the 'background' - differs from individual to individual, and thus the restoration, reclamation or undoing entails the reversal of specific second or third party maneuverings specific to each individual.

Skip: What's actually the wit concerning reclamations of freedom, freedom from what?

Wim: You want to know? Really?

Skip: You said that help of some sort is needed to undo the en-veiling or obfuscation of freedom for a person to regain their freedom... For me it would be more acceptable if you would have said, 'Help might be needed for someone to attain or gain freedom!'

Wim: Well I did not say that and... I have some very fundamental ideas about 'attainment' when it comes to freedom. 'Attainment of freedom' is the very thing that is not needed… I'm talking about reclamation of 'innate freedom', something that I see that everyone is born with.

Attainment of something is about something one doesn't have yet, reclamation is about something that is seemingly lost out of sight or seemingly made unavailable.

So, by what you are saying you are expressing that freedom is not innate, that it is instead something to be won, earned gained or attained... thus you are denying the existence of innate freedom... Humm....

Skip: I don't think you need to help people in reclaiming their freedom, unless you are an attorney of law.

Wim: If that's your evaluation Skip, it seems that you are trying to be 'clever'.

Anyway, and again, if you want me to answer your question, then you have to give my answer a chance and not already spell out what it cannot or should not be. Doing that only means that you already have an established position and may not really be interested in considering other views... unless it is your purpose to just disagree.

It is of course OK, to disagree - to disagree with my explanation - but it is not OK to deny the existence of that what you - apparently - want to know more about.

Do you see how an inner conflict is showing up in the way your are approaching this?

Skip: Yeah, all right... Kinda... I can see that...

Wim: OK then, as long as you see that so far you have been showing a more or less habituated stance to just disagree... but how can you do that when you haven't even heard my answer yet!?

Skip: Well, regarding experience of freedom, you have yours and others have their own experience. What experience enables you to judge the experiences of others?

Wim: Uh uh Skip. I have never and will never question or judge anyone's experiences.

So maybe your question regarding this 'judging of experiences' is ill directed and should really be put to someone who judges certain experiences to be unreal, idealistic or just a fantasy.

Skip: Have you experienced 'innate freedom'?

Wim: Of course! Also because essentially, and that is my point, 'one is innate freedom', thus - so to speak - 'I am' innate freedom.

Skip: Huh? What, by God, do you mean by that, by 'I am'? Gosh man, who do you thi... ... ...

Anyway, it sounds funny to help someone reclaim something that is already 'innate', don't you think?

Wim: Although you are putting a question again, how you asked sounds again more like a prejudiced retort... even before your question is being responded to...

Skip: Ok then Wim, then tell me who or what is the villain? Who or what constrains us to reclaim? Is it the 'Ego'? Does the 'Ego' exist?

Wim: More questions but such good ones, but I haven't even begun answering your previous ones.

But OK.

'The Ego, does the Ego exist?'

Again, do you want that answered or are you already - as before - putting up restrictions as to what the answer should be?

I can answer if you would like me to do that, but then your asking is getting very close to asking for eh... help... something (remember) you found unnecessary.

Skip: Does 'innate freedom' then exist because there is an 'Ego'?

Wim: No, 'innate freedom' and 'Ego' are not causally related, Ego is an illus...

Skip: I don't like the whole 'Ego-blah-blah-blah' of our North American fellows, but it seems to me that it would be interesting to know if the 'Ego', whatever it might mean to you, is the villain which makes reclamations and help-with-reclamations necessary...

Humm, couldn't it be so that the reclamation in itself is part of the original problem of the apparent loss of freedom?

Wim: In fact that is exactly so!

Hooray, and good for you!

Of course you would have heard that in my answer if you would've given me a chance to come up with one.

Anyway, you may already have noticed that I keep using words like 'seeming', 'illusion', 'veiling' and 'attempts' liberally and I use those words precisely then, when it is clear that we actually are already free and were never really lost, but only have been made to assume that we are not free... so that we might become (I am whispering this) for example... good consumers, pawns in someone's scheme, or foot soldiers for some ulterior cause, etc.

The topic of innate freedom is actually not about freedom from, it is about freedom in. But that is part of an answer, and I'm not sure yet if you want to hear it, know it already or will just deny the value of it.

Skip: Well Wim, wouldn't it be better to help people stop making absurd reclamations, like 'innate freedoms', which actually reminded me of my studies and a professor who used to talk about 'innate Syphilis'. 

So there, if it is like it seems and with respect to your 'innate freedom' I would say I am not interested in reclamation...

Wim: I thought so...

Skip: ...nor in help with it.