I have a right to my life, as you have an exclusive right to your own. Parents do not own their children; husbands don’t own their wives; wives do not own their husbands; employers don’t own their employees; governments do not own their citizens. Each individual’s right to their life is complete, total, unequivocal, absolute. The only ways to forfeit the right to your own life is to 1. choose to give it up, or 2. deny some other their right to theirs, i.e. murder.
I know my life belongs to me. I accept my responsibility to live it.
Because my life is mine to live and my responsibility to sustain, I must be free. I have a right to my liberty. If I am caged or enslaved or forced to live in accordance with some dictator’s arbitrary decrees, I can not be held responsible for my failure. A slave does not own his life and is therefore not responsible for its sustenance. A slave is not free to make choices, and where there are no choices there are no moral questions, there is no personal responsibility. A free man, I can dream-up projects, and I can carry them out. I can think in many directions and pursue my happiness in any number of professions and arts. When a free man succeeds, he does so by virtue of his own ability. He owns his success. When a free man fails, he has no other to blame, and therefore no escape. There’s no escaping the truth when you are free.
Much is made in America of our First Amendment religious freedoms. What is seldom said [and likely even more rarely considered] is that these rights include the freedom from religion, or any other system of thought control [compulsory patriotism, for example]. The First Amendment protects each individual’s right to think for themselves. As long as my thinking does not result in actual harm to any other, my right to think for myself is complete, total, unequivocal, and absolute. We are free to think, and we can speak our minds, too, my loyal reader.
The purpose of my life is to live it. The goal of my life is my own happiness. You have a right to pursue your own happiness. You are free to do anything you wish as long as your actions harm no other, but, be warned: don’t expect anything you can conceive of to result in your happiness. It is your right to pursue your happiness, but there is no guarantee you will achieve it. “The pursuit of happiness is a man’s right to set his own goals, choose his values and to achieve them. Happiness is that state of consciousness which comes from the achievement of your values… But happiness doesn’t mean simply momentary pleasures or any kind of mindless self indulgence. Happiness is a profound, guiltless, rational feeling of self-esteem and of pride in one’s own achievements. It is the enjoyment of life…” –Ayn Rand
All of the ancient models for living a good life are spelled out in the holy books of every religion in existence. None of the ancient models recognize the value of your life. None permit you to set your own goals. None point to your own self-esteem as the principal goal in life. All propagate the notion that there is something greater than you, that you are unfit to determine what is right and what is wrong. Nearly all promise another life in some undefined “elsewhere” where you will be rewarded for sacrificing your life here on Earth. Ancient authoritarians created lists of do’s and don’ts and the bloody consequences for doing the don’ts, all claiming to know what God wants.
As for your contemporaries: Their parents accepted the popular mythology as their parents did. To deny or question their faith, for them, is like turning their backs on their parents. They seek harmony above all. They fail to question. Not knowing what it means to be free, they willingly sacrifice their life and liberty for the comfort of conformity.
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