Freedom in the mountains and in Brussels

Heading for the mountains is always a stimulating experience and many people use the mountains to recharge the batteries. There are certainly both physical and psychological explanations of how this process works. One of them is probably the feeling of freedom. Daily routines and rules are left behind. There are fewer restrictions, your own capacity defines the limits.

How the use of "mountain-freedom" is an expression of own capacities can be observed by looking at hiking. Most people use the trails or tracks, i e marked routes between destinations. In many mountain areas they do not have to. They are free to walk outside the tracks, choosing their own route. That is of course because the trails represent the most lazy alternative. You don´t have to study the map so much, don´t have to be prepared for unexpected obstacles or being afraid to get lost. You need only be able to follow the track.

Following a track can be seen as ceding some freedom to carry out a hike adapted to own capacities. But this is a voluntary ceding of freedom, if you want to you can - and some people do - walk outside the marked route. You can also use the trail offer as you wish: walk alone or with a group, wear the gear you want to, use more or less time than the stipulated etc.

In the same way as people use a trail to exploit their capacity effectively, the origin of the EU was based on identification of areas where voluntary ceding of some power from the national to the supranational level would give added value to everyone. But to day this kind of thinking appears to have been replaced by a desire to transmit as much power as possible to the supranational level. In the Brussels bubble they want - with a metaphor (or may be it is already real politics) - to regulate where you can go, if you can walk alone or not, how many persons there shall be in a walkinggroup, what gear you have to wear and every other thing they think Brussels need to decide for you. The EU needs to rethink this development, otherwise the exit-trails will become more popular.