I am currently in Chicago staring out at the cloud blanketed sky and thinking about freedom. I just finished Jean-Paul Sartre's "The Age of Reason". Mathieu, the protagonist, is obsessed with being free and it made me think about what freedom truly means. Rousseau once said, "Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains." While this a a sad statement, it is also true in the context of our lives today. We are so bound by real and made-up responsibilities, finances, even our goals, that we often forget how free we truly are. Traveling this summer has truly taught me how limited we make our lives and the possibilities that exist if we allow them. As an upper middle class young adult my life has been so structured that I have hardly known a time when I truly let life take me in whatever direction it pleased. While I am applying to law schools in the fall and in some ways purchasing my own handcuffs in the process, I am also hoping to maintain this lightness. A lightness that enables me to reflect on my freedom on a daily basis and know that the ties that bind me are of my own creation. My goal is to become fluent in French and practice law there, a liberating plan in the midst of schedules and limitations. Through out this blog I hope to remind myself that freedom is in my hands and that the things I love are ever present, we control our own destiny.
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