This is my contribution to 
Somehow from the bottom to the top.
Freedom And Responsibility
Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect. - Eleanor Roosevelt
We live in times of unprecedented wealth. Never in our modern history the planet witnessed so many humans at the same time. Almost 8 billion individuals are now sharing Earth's resources, communicate every day, have aspirations, do things and expect results. Alas, so many of these 8 billions are now in the "unwilling to grow up" camp. With everything within reach, with ethics replaced by ready-made models of "how life should be lived" or "what happiness really is", they simply don't have the capacity to understand freedom anymore. Habituated to always receive what they want, they live in a world without consequences.
For these people, freedom means simply "I want to do as I please". That's a very basic, skewed and even toxic definition of freedom. Because, the moment you do something that harms other people, your freedom is just another form of abuse.
With great freedom comes great responsibility. The responsibility to accept other people opinions, to respect their right to live, to respect the truth and a common, shared good.
Free Speech And Responsibility
Very often, freedom of speech is used by borderline psychotic individuals who want to "talk whatever they want, wherever they want", because, you know, freedom. From conspiracy theorists to downright tinfoil wearing fools who are preaching whatever brings them attention and some sort of social validation (not to mention money or privilege), these people are hiding under the blanket of "free speech" and use it as decoy for their lousy and laughable tactics.
As a subset of the all-encompassing concept of freedom, freedom of speech obeys the same rules: it comes with responsibility. The moment your so called "free discourse" harms other people - by lying, by bending the truth through skewed patterns, by trying to shovel your opinion on other people's throat, without any rational argument - well, in that moment your freedom of speech melts down into abuse. Just because it doesn't leave bruises, it doesn't mean verbal abuse is not just as destructive as physical violence.
There's a very, very thin line between free speech and verbal abuse. And in that line lies responsibility.
A truly free speech is one that encompasses all views, that can agree to disagree, that is supportive and assumed, that enriches people instead of frightening them, that builds trust instead of deception.
And that freedom of speech is the one that it's worth preserving, at all costs.
The "bottom to top" approach I wanted to use in this short post is simply a call to responsibility. A call to own our own opinions, but not in a toxic, destructive way. A call to understand the other part perspective and to keep flexibility as an always available option.
Because, no matter how much we learned, how many years of experience we have, how many big words we know to use, at the end of the day we only know one thing: that we barely know who we are.
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I'm a geek, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me 
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