Freedom Versus Liberty

Am I free to do as I wish?

No. The answer is always no. There are degrees of freedom to every person, and these are defined by natural and social pressures. A person cannot be completely free, and just the same a person cannot be completely without freedom. We always have a choice, even if that choice is not to our liking.

What is liberty, then?

Both words mean freedom, but liberty is used in connotation with persecution and defense. To have liberty is to be without persecution. To have no unfriendly forces putting pressure on your choices. We can either be with liberty or without it. Unlike freedom, liberty has no degrees. A liberated people have no enemies forcing their choices.

Can I be both free and liberated?

Yes. While we cannot force our enemies into surrender, and thus changing their opinions of us, we can find ways to make their efforts not worthwhile. Being liberated from external social forces, by design, now we maximize our freedoms. Being free means to feel that your most important choices are your own; including daily actions, social interactions, professional work and self-care. A liberated people can continue to design their environment, so that not only liberty is kept, but also that individual freedoms are enhanced.

How can a people enhance their freedom, then?

Just as we would put a fence (a physical negative incentive) to keep aggressors at bay, we would also put social rewards (a social positive incentive) to encourage non-aggressive behavior within our friendly circles. The former, making unwelcome outsiders feel that handling the fence is not worthwhile the catch beyond that fence. The latter, making valuable friends and family encouraged to behave positively by rewarding them constantly - not by agreement, but by emotional reward.

A romantic fantasy...

Free to live as you wish with all that you need,
while kept Liberated from aggressors in a remote and inaccessible place.

Updating The Backgrounds

So, today, I felt like doing something about how this blog previously looked like; a tileable forest-green background image, with all these nice partially transparent gadgets. It just looked silly.

I really love partially transparent backgrounds and outlines for gadgets and different parts! It gives a smooth and easy-on-the-eye feeling for the looker. Still, I felt the background was overwhelming. So, I went at it! :-D

I decided to create a nifty fade-in effect, using a regular fixed (does not scroll) sky background, and putting a landscape photo at the bottom. Scroll down! See how they merge! I used a PNG image for the bottom, and to reduce loading times, I also used TinyPNG on it.

Thanks for good work and free service.

While going through the CSS edits, I decided to change some opacity values and colors. For example, I made it so the Header has a darkened background. Also, I gave those floating (backgroundless) texts a "text-shadow" CSS effect for an outline. There are a few more fixes implemented, and generally, I am very satisfied! Visual design is exciting!~

Comment, and tell me how you feel about the new-ish design!