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This is my entry for the Freedom Challenge being run by @freedomtribe.

The challenge is to try and answer the question:

"What's the one thing you have lost - or would be afraid to lose - which would limit (or has already limited) your personal Freedom?"

Thinking aloud

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This was a tough question to answer... the most immediate answer that sprang to mind had already been used to good effect by @katrina-ariel in this pretty awesome post... and so I had to think hard about something else, as I didn't think I could put that answer in a better form than she already had! So, instead of thinking about things that had already been past and lost... I started thinking about what it was that I held most dear. ... and I settled on the concept of "curiosity".

Curiosity

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The idea of learning and the burning desire to keep learning is a concept that I hold quite dear... and something that I hope to pass on to my children. After all, there is always so much more to learn about any single topic... however inane it appears on the surface. There is always more depth and fine detail that is more than a casual observer would expect, from the most optimal way to make a bubble bath, to understanding mathematical set theory or pushing the boundaries of sound creation on a musical instrument. Everyone is a fountain of expertise in some topic or skill in relation to their peers... and the desire to learn more and to discover new tricks is something that keeps our minds alive and bright!

However, this desire to learn needs to be fed by something... and that something is the concept of curiosity. Curiosity is that nagging voice in the back of your head...as you pass something that is unusual or even just a little bit interesting, that yells out to you and says STOP, TAKE A LOOK! It's the ability to be distracted by the unusual and the new... or the completely unknown!

It my daily life, it is the voice that compels me to ask about how a workman does his job... what it is about the way they drill the concrete in my house, why they follow one pattern and not another one? It is the thing that makes me stop to watch sand falling or a candle flickering... or the pattern of people walking on a street and how they interact with each other...

In my previous life as a student of Theoretical Physics, it was (and still is...) the desire to learn the innermost secretes of the Universe.. the jewels that were lying around for any eager and able mind to grasp their elegance, with the promise of more questions and secrets to be forever discovered without end. It was the complex systems that emerged from simple concepts in Mathematics, or the desire to put definitive explanatory form on "obvious" concepts like addition or things that were deemed "common sense".... or otherwise proving that such "common sense" concepts were completely without basis in reality, whilst discovering that ludicrously "unreal" concepts were actually a better reflection of the Universe.

In my current job as a musician, it is the desire to re-learn the practices and intentions of the past... by delving into the source treatises and ideas of the contemporary musical and social cultures... not to take the modern interpretations of aesthetics that have evolved over many centuries of tradition, which often give very divergent interpretations on the original meaning of musical works. It is also the desire to be brave enough to push the limits of musical interpretation, being curious enough to discover new sounds and ideas instead of treading the routine ground of accepted non-confrontational interpretation of beauty.

As a parent, the idea of curiosity returns and is reignited in the joy and wonder that my children find in discovering every little thing... be it a rock in the garden, the concept of black holes, new tricks on the piano, tasting hot chili sauce for the first time or how to do a handstand under water. Everything is a monumental discovery of equal wonder and amazement!

Curiosity is the endless seeking and discovery of entertainment and wonder in everything... it can be mundane, but still hold so much meaning and joy. If I lost my curiosity, or at least the bravery to pursue the questions that curiosity raises, I would find that I would have lost my intellectual and artistic (creative) freedoms. For me, this would be a much bigger loss than the loss of physical freedoms... as a mind that is fettered and blinded by routine and the expected, blind to the novelty that lies under every stone, is one that is dead before it's allocated time, trapped by boredom, jaded and bleak.