I'll add that freedom, or free-feeling, is more complex than it might seem at first. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, miles outside of a small town, so I've been the 16 year old you describe. I get that.
Other people have taken the opposite point, talking about the freedom of not having to own a car to go about their daily lives. I've lived in a number of megacities with fantastic transit, so I get that, too.
But common to both things is the assumption that there are things you want to get to in the first place. Where are those things? How much effort does it take to get to them? What's the opportunity cost, or additional utility, in making the journey? What circumstances causes those things to exist in the first place?
One of the major lessons of my adolescence was that the ability to translocate from nothing to a much further away nothing is a dubious sort of freedom.
Other people have taken the opposite point, talking about the freedom of not having to own a car to go about their daily lives. I've lived in a number of megacities with fantastic transit, so I get that, too.
But common to both things is the assumption that there are things you want to get to in the first place. Where are those things? How much effort does it take to get to them? What's the opportunity cost, or additional utility, in making the journey? What circumstances causes those things to exist in the first place?
One of the major lessons of my adolescence was that the ability to translocate from nothing to a much further away nothing is a dubious sort of freedom.