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 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 seen as 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 a 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, you were beginning to invent yourself
in the process of making free choices.
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 in ways 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.
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 about 40 years later,
it does seem to be a courageous choice,
a dramatic exercise of freedom going beyond any prepared path.
4. FREE-LANCE LIFE
Since that retirment 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
—and the
potential
participants.
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 get back on
one of the career-paths offered
by society.
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 was able to recover copies of all of my book then in print or in
progress.
And since then, reading and writing have been the
main activites of my life.
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 have produced additional editions of all of the books that have
sold out.
(Here is the index of all of my
books in print.)
5. LIVING EVERY DAY IN COMPLETE
FREEDOM
I began to write this cyber-sermon
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 the power of freedom at every turning point
in my life.
I have decided 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.
6. FREEDOM IN LOVING
Another dimension of my freedom manifests itself in
my personal relationships.
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 even 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.
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.
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 and 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 recognize that there has been a shift in my
thinking.
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.
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 existential philosopher,
reading, writing, teaching, creating, sharing information on the
Internet.
His free choices shape every day of his life.
created June 12, 2005; revised
2-29-2008; 3-8-2008
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
cyber-sermons by James Park,
organized into 9 subject-areas.
Go to the Unitarian
Universalist Campus Ministries page.
Go to the UNITARIAN
UNIVERSALIST page.
Return to the beginning
of this home page:
An
Existential Philosopher's Museum.