For a long time, I’ve been considering the notion of freedom. I’ve used the word “notion” because it now seems clear to me that there is a belief in freedom as oppose to actually being free. This morning, whilst I’m sitting here in my prison cell, I thought I’d write about freedom.

one of the questions I hear frequently is, “So what’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get out?”. Guys discuss this all of the time and they give a variety of responses. All of the answers are about things of which they have been deprived in prison and I guess that’s no surprise.

All of the replies also focus on sensual pleasures, too, and again maybe that is no surprise. However, very few people seem to have freedom at the heart of their immediate actions on liberation from custody.

So to philosophise for a few moments, what is true freedom? I’m afraid I can’t say who wrote this but freedom supposes a free will and will requires motive. Motive is a matter of belief and belief must be in the existence of something – it concerns what is “real”. Ultimately, therefore, freedom depends on the thing that could be described as “real”.

I firmly believe that many people are badly affected by delusions. So badly affected, in fact, that they do not see their mistaken beliefs or impressions and they galvanise these delusions by surrounding themselves with a group of similarly deluded people. Of course, this isn’t an observation reserved for prisoners, just look around you (or, for a greater challenge, look in a mirror!)

If I am correct that many people are deluded then that means that many people cannot have true freedom. To put it another way, you can’t be free to do what you want if your “want” isn’t your free will.

I have spent many hours today looking at my wants and I have been amazed and horrified at how much they have been driven by my delusions. I fell prey to marketing strategies and social narratives. My “truths”, the foundation on which i had bult my attitudes were simply false. I didn’t need the latest updated tech gadget, it wasn’t true that getting a permanent job with a workplace pension was the most important thing and state institutions like the police and the judicial system are most certainly not to be relied on.

Whilst I had all of those deluded beliefs, I was not free or, in other words, I was imprisoned not by iron bars but by my own mistaken impressions. I suspect many, maybe even most, people o the outside are like that. If you turn on the TV then very soon, you’ll see evidence to support my assertion.

Increasingly, I am realising my delusions and so I am seeing what is reality. More and more I am truly believing in the existence of that “real”. Therefore, despite the fact that I am in prison, I am becoming less and less imprisoned. So what’s the first thing I’m going to do when I get out? I don’t know yet, I’ll decide of my own free will at the time because I am not a number.

NaN.