When we think of Freedom, we always think about the things we cannot do generally limited by materialistic strings. What we desire to do but we cannot do. That is the kind of captivity we seem to be attached to. Some more spiritual people, think of freedom, as a detachment from common daily strings, like work, family, … This is a more Epicurean view of freedom. Freedom from pain. Considering that anything apart from wandering can lead to pain.
According to Cynicism, none of these definitions make sense. There is only one freedom: freedom of soul. Freedom of soul can be achieved by any means: essentially one can be a slave to the cultural eyes, and be free.
What is freedom of the soul?
Freedom of the soul is perceived in correlation to what limits us because of passion. We have to understand the passions on what we avoid emotionally or what we pursue to achieve emotionally related. For example, fear and angst are evasion passions, while desire, need, and pleasure is pursued emotions.
Anything that is done motivated by passions (either pursued or evaded) is essentially what deprives the soul of freedom. Generally, the most common things are restrictions.
“I can’t do this because I fear this can happen “
Therefore, the analysis that should be done is: what is being restricted in one’s life motivated by the passions? Anyone should find relatively easy to do a shortlist with at least 4 or 5 items. What is not so easy is being freed from those chains. This is what the Cynicism School was all about, and this is where NeoCynicism will try to expand from a modern standpoint of view.