Intro
There may be many internal or external factors that slow you down, that hold you back in your pursuit for greater manliness. In molding ourselves into men, therefore, freedom is a key ingredient.
Short Exercise 15
- What does “freedom” mean to me?
- What are the top three internal chains that hold me back in my pursuit for manliness?
- What are the top three external chains that hold me back in my pursuit for manliness?
- What do I need to do to begin to get rid of these obstacles?
Commentary
First of all, let us not confuse freedom with independence. In the modern world, when we celebrate Independence Day for example, we celebrate achieving freedom of a certain kind. However, a train is free – i.e. can go wherever it wants – as long as it remains dependent on the rails. The moment it gets off the rails, it loses its freedom. It gets stuck. It rusts. It becomes useless (trains are made to move around). You are the train. Your freedom is not contradicted by dependency.
In fact, like the train, the more you are dependent on your “rails”, the more free you will be, the more you will be able to go wherever you want.
But what are my rails? What should I depend on?
Let’s use another example: if you want to draw a triangle, you must subject yourself, you must obey/depend on the rule that all triangles have only three sides. It doesn’t matter how much you want to be “independent” of this truth of triangles; doesn’t matter if you revolt shouting “Who said!? You can’t tell me what to do! I want to draw my own triangles!” Without obeying the truth of what a triangle is, without depending on that truth, you’ll never draw a triangle no matter how much you want.
So back to the question: what are my rails? What should I depend on? Answer? Depend on your truth. Depend on what you are, what you are made to be. The more you depend on the truths of what a human being is meant to be, on what a man is made to be, on what a Christian man is meant to be, the freer you will be and the greater heights you will reach.
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