One thing we have gained from our extreme lifestyle is time.
Personal freedom is about re-gaining access to our time. Unschooling (to us) has a deep root in the respect for our children's time, the fact that it is THEIR time, not ours.
We are born naked. All we own is our existence in time. Time is the most valuable resource, and therefore, personal freedom is such a treasure. To me, personal freedom begins when I get to decide what to do with my time.
In Western mainstream life, we are conditioned to obey a structured timetable from early on. Our days and years are counted and will define what we are doing for the first two decades of our life. Our sleep, food, play, and work are defined by hours, and the hours are counted down to the last second—no wiggle room.
I have to say again: I love the reasoning mind, math and physics and all - but we must never forget the intuitive, living mind, the existence in the present moment. Breathing, feeling, sensing. This is where life is lived. This is not compatible with tic-toc-clocks.
Of course, winning your hours, moments, and years back from the trap of the structured, focused, planned life is a battle that is not even won once that stage is over. In reality, we have to win our emotional life back, our presence in the body, and our knowledge of what to do with all of the hours.
From early in life, somebody else is telling us how to spend our time: The older the child gets, the worse it becomes. Not much freedom to decide for yourself. The child will not experience making choices for him or herself as to what is worth doing or what will make him/her happy and fulfilled.
The result is the internalization of the enemy. “Success” is correlated with structure, discipline, and results.
We have to ask ourselves why we have an epidemic of depression and of stress reactions. Both of these psychological states are about not being aligned with time, happy to be present in life.
I believe the root lies within the self-directed: If we do not learn to own our hours, do we actually own our lives?
Love and light
Cecilie Conrad
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