Where lies true freedom?

When I was a child I thought freedom meant to be free of all rules. Of course by then what I knew as "rules" were bedtime, homework and this kind of stuff we take as big problems before the teen ages. Then after, we think freedom is to have a car, to go out without permission without having a time scheduled to arrive back. And soon we'll find that when you finally get to do it, you'll be spending most of the time of your life tied to your job. It's absurd to me to realize how people live mainly for their jobs. Even if you have money now, you´ll only go on vacation when your job allows. Even if you have kids, you are only free to be a full time mom during the months you are on maternity leave. You spend more time with colleagues you hate than with your family you love, and guess what - this is pretty normal, common and acceptable.
Of course, I am the crazy one, but this just doesn´t make any sense to me. If I work I´ll have money, but what they are buying is actually my life. I am a writer. But I am writing now and you are reading for free: this is not my job or my work, it's my art, no matter how lousy it is, it's the only thing I can do. I'm actually happy that I have at least one talent I can make money on, without loosing my kid's custody...

Here, translating my thoughts, I'm really free. I can strip off soul-naked to you all, I can have my lover anytime I desire, I can tell you openly how stupid and absurd this society is, I can have sex and music, I can even go to the toilet and make you all aware of it, because fact is that right now I´m nothing more than words. You can't see me or hear the sound of my voice, you don't know my real name, and still, in some aspects you´ll know me better than my own genetic - and this because not everything I write here is actually the raw truth. Some - probably very, very few of you - know it. And that's where my freedom ends, to be bonded by will. I could go way further and open up to things I would probably regret later: I could embarass myself, offend or humiliate people. And these things not always comes rightaway.  I dunno about you but now I'm past 30´s, I have plenty of opportunities to notice how much little things done so long ago can change drastically one's future at some point way ahead.  This is not a moral lesson, it's the plain truth. If you´re too young still to believe, baby, sit, watch and learn.

In the end, we're always chained to something. To society, to our jobs, to our families and the respect we own to our dear ones. Some of us are enslaved by addictions and bad habits, vicious relationships and greed. We are free to make our choices, and condemned to live the consequences of it. Putting it like this sounds even threatening, but in fact it can be pretty rewarding too. We can't have it all: not all the pleasure, nor all the pain. And only knowledge can guide us  through the best options. Even for the ones who only learn from failure, there will always be another opportunity to trail a different path. Even if some bridges are now burnt and you can't go back. After all, forward is the only way to go...Especially when you are lost.

Maybe freedom is the way, not the destination.