"Man is born free, but everywhere is in chains," said Rousseau quite a while ago. I think his quote can be applied in much different ways today than he had originally intended, without compromising the essential truth of the statement. While he was concerned more with how government can be a non-dominating protective force, an aspect of individual freedom in contemporary, industrial society that I have been mulling over recently is institutional freedom, or better put, freedom from the constraints of institutions.
Whether we enter them voluntarily or not, social institutions that govern our use of time and constrain our choices through their requirements are a form of arbitrary will to which we all succumb. Even when we enter these institutions voluntarily, such as going to school or taking up a job, there is a point where the duties to the institution are not like the pain undergone by Ulysses when he was bound to the mast as he passed the Sirens. (He was under his own will, despite the pain it caused him, and he came out the better for it.)
Being a slave to obligations isn't always like Ulysses' case though... this one is unfinished for now
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