on freedom

and also living meaningfully?

something crystallized for me in the last few weeks. what i want out of life is freedom. not money, status, security, power or fame. and the good news is that freedom comes in many forms. it’s a feeling.

“freedom” as a word connotes a certain selfishness or lawlessness. but in practice, i think freedom has to do with being incredibly discerning with your obligations. and obliging yourself to goals, people and locations with a higher purpose. it’s counter-intuitive, but in commitment I think we can find a greater sense of freedom. two things free us 1) our relationships to the things in our life and 2) stepping into our ability to make choices

i. material possessions

for instance, having a big house and nice things can actually tie you down. they can prevent you from being free - the cliche “your possessions can possess you.” if you become too afraid to lose your position in life, wealth can make you cling to what you own.

on the flip, poverty also prevents freedom. it limits you and keeps you in stress cycles. in poverty, you lack the safety net that enables people to go out on a limb and take on risks. survival mode can make dreaming a luxury - either, one you can’t afford, or one that you so desperately need to make it through this life.

(desperately dreaming is a miserable way to exist, but pretty conducive to creativity. it’s miserable because you’ll often find yourself disappointed by the lack of time/ resources to bring dreams to fruition.)

both states, wealth and poverty, can prevent you from roaming or taking bigger risks. so freedom cannot be found in *either* attaining or relinquishing money and objects. I think it’s found by transforming your relationship to material things.

ii. partnership

love can be freeing. the wrong partner can shackle you.

never finding love is a different type of imprisonment, in my mind. i’ve been around too many single people in their 50s… they’re stuck on questions like “is this it?” and “well, what do I do now?” … “what’s the point?” is the saddest one :(

I think if we wait for the perfect partner to arrive fully formed, or if we wait until we’re perfect for partnership, we will never be satisfied. people are imperfect. and i’m realizing that love is a process. it’s something that must be built.

because I grew up in the midwest, I saw a lot of people get married right out of college and start to have babies. there’s nothing wrong with that. that’s a happy life, too. but not what I want, necessarily. I think if we follow too closely the life that is designed for us by hegemonic social structures, we might wake up one day entrenched and lost.

people who have the type of midlife crisis where they ask “how the hell did I get here?” are often guilty of living automatically. you cannot be free without questioning. you cannot be free without making choices. you arrive at a different type of midlife crisis if you cannot accept the consequences and tradeoffs of making decisions.

I can really only speak for myself here. but. I do not think longterm ENM is the answer, either. out of all pursuits, love has the potential to free us the most, especially when we give of ourselves, fully.

real love emboldens us. supports us. makes us whole. again, I arrive at a cliche about kindness and patience - love is both a platform for the experience of freedom and something within which we can be free.

iii. work

like I said, freedom is a feeling. it’s our relationship to the things in our life. what may give one person a sense of agency and exhilaration might totally be limiting and crushing to another.

freedom is the conceptual difference between a rigid, option-less career track and a career with solid, outlined steps forward. it’s the difference between feeling the burden of responsibility, versus understanding that being needed by your family and community is a gift.

sometimes, I get scared about the future, and falsely believe that having a really intense career, or becoming a very devoted housewife, could save me from doubt. I get in my head that I “HAVE TO” become more disciplined. I “HAVE TO” become more motivated.

but either rigorous path would require too much from me, and that would strip me from my freedom. end of the day, I don’t even think it would remove uncertainty from my life to align myself with power/ prestige. to be free I had to let go of this sense of “measuring up.”

when you are free, you do not HAVE TO do anything. you choose.

and in that case, doing boring or hard work ceases to be unpleasant. because nearly every path involves some amount of boring and hard work - but if you’re on a path toward freeing yourself, you’ll want to do it.

iv. ownership

the thing i struggle with a LOT is the anxious, fearful feeling that my time is limited. i don’t really have language for it. you know in period pieces where someone falls to the floor in their little britches screaming IM RUINED!!!

if my goal is being free, there’s no way i can “lose it all.” because if i’m free i’m not aiming for ownership. i’m aiming to realize it was never mine to begin with.

to be free one has to be comfortable with a certain amount of loss. not fearful of it. this is the antidote - to understand the fleeting nature of all things, and make the most of what is there.

hmm.

let’s end on a poem.