The convenience of slavery and the light of liberty

We believe that liberty is a state of dissatisfaction of consciousness with itself which is realized into development of ways of own change by impact on existing beingness, taking into account its counteraction [1, Chapter 1].

For a person, this state can be positive in the case when he finds something new, interesting, or just useful. It can also be negative, since in order to acquire a new one, it is necessary to destroy the habitual, which always leads to stress or may even lead to the death of the carrier of consciousness.

It must be assumed that slavery is, in contrast to liberty, a state of satisfaction of consciousness with its present position.

For a person, this state also ranges from positive to negative.

Positive slavery can be considered the dependence of a person on his own particular hobby, shading everything else, but giving extraordinary satisfaction. At the same time, this dependence throws a person out of the general flow of time onto its roadside, condemning him to stagnation.

Negative slavery means a person's dependence on circumstances, led him by own will or understanding, for example, to satisfy his desire for rest and stability, into complete submission to one or another boss, or led him into complete dependence on some order due to the lack of will power overcoming this order or lack of intelligence for evading external influence (force, deception), that may, for the time being, satisfy him by absence of the need to make decisions independently, which many people do not want for various reasons, in particular, owing to the weak of the character, laziness, undevelopedness, worship of authority, etc.; but this path invariably leads a person to degradation.

From the above, it follows that liberty and slavery, reflecting dissatisfaction and satisfaction of consciousness in a person, invariably coexist with each other, differing only in degree.

What determines this degree?

f we turn to all living organisms, excluding humans, they can be characterized only as slaves of sensations, since they do not go beyond adaptation to the environment. Within these limits, they strive to survive by obtaining food; seek to multiply, delivering satisfaction themselves; they try to dominate both individually and in a group, not being satisfied with the current situation, but striving to ensure a better quality of sensations, including a sense of superiority over neighboring creatures.

Nevertheless, these creatures have a rudimentary degree of liberty, because they do not lose their activity during life, which enables them in one way or another to adapt to the environment, increasing the quantity and quality of sensations over time in their generations, that is, developing, acquiring both local perfection and variety of species.

However, to get out of the limits of adaptability to the environment, that is, to cease to be slaves of sensations alone, these creatures – from bacteria to primates – are not able, remaining on the lowest degree of freedom, or - practically in complete dependence on their own sensations.

The activity of their consciousness, as already indicated, is limited to nutrition, reproduction, attempts to dominate whenever possible, regardless of the complexity of the organisms and the development of their governing body - the brain. Everything that happens with such organisms is their response to the impact of the environment.

Therefore, similar consciousness can be qualified as a lower consciousness, that is, a consciousness that is practically completely dependent on the environment, which is their hostess, and they are its involuntary slaves, although they are capable of slow development thanks to their own non-vanishing activity.

It is visible from everything stated that for live organisms there is only one opportunity to get out of existence as slaves of sensations - toward liberty, as more or less conscious development of ways of own change, namely: at least partially to get rid of the full submission to the environment, i.e. to rise to some extent above it, and thus to gain the opportunity not only to adapt to it, but also to fit it under themselves, wondering how best to do it first, too, to improve the quality of sensations, and then for autonomous reflections on the meaning of life, its curiosities and own improvement.