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Gary Leimback: Freedom, homelessness and an antidote to suicide

When looking at the reasons why a homeless person would rather camp out on the street rather than go to a shelter, a key reason is to be free.

There are many different ways of understanding freedom. I want to describe four. (I am purposely not going to name my sources. I will leave that a mystery. It is the ideas that are important.) Great thinkers though the ages have seen freedom as a key human motivation.

An 18th century German thinker saw freedom as being centered in the human decision-making process. I deliberate about my desires, beliefs, values, friends, etc.