When high school students, college students or graduate students ask me why I decided to get my Ph.D., I invariably answer, "Because I wanted to be free." This is often met with quizzical looks and I can see in their faces that they are counting 4 years of college, 4-5 years of graduate school , 4 years of postdoctoral internship and thinking, "How can 12-15 years of training be freedom?"
To answer this question, try this thought process. How many of you have obligations at work… who has obligations at school, and finally, who here has obligations at home? At times you may feel that these obligations are extreme and that they limit your freedom. At times you may have thought, "I just want to be free of these obligations; free to do what I want." I will argue that freedom is not the absence of obligations… …it is not the absence of limits, but freedom can only exist in presence of obligations, and moreover freedom is enabled by obligations and responsibilities.
Let me explain what I mean. In the world of soccer balls a deflated ball has complete freedom. It can be a bi-concave disk, it can flop around, it can be an amorphous blob–there are some scouts at this court of honor who would use it as a bowl on a camp out. In contrast a fully inflated soccer ball has no freedom—because of its composition and content. As long as its integrity is maintained it is obligated to be a sphere, of a fixed size—it has no freedom to be anything else. But… of the two soccer balls which one has the freedom to go the distance, which one would you rather use in a soccer game?
When a new scout joins this community he has very few obligations. But, when he goes on his first camp out the scout master may ask him to clean up after himself, (to demonstrate this you can image that with each comment a deflated soccer ball gets pumped up a little more by participating scouts), his patrol leader may ask him to clean up after others or to help prepare a meal, then when back at the troop meetings he will be asked to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient ,thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. With each of these obligations and responsibilities, the scout gains capability and the freedom to pursue his dreams. It is the content of our character that gives us the freedom to excel. If our character is pumped up by the community of scouting we have the ability to go the distance.
At an Eagle court of honor, we honor the individual achievements of Eagle scouts, but we are also here to honor the achievements of this community. A community that supports the development of scouts; from tenderfoot to Eagle. Eagle scouts are an important part of this community–one that imparts obligations and responsibilities on scouts and to helps them take shape as Eagle scouts.
