Freedom is always available. One need only pay the price for it.– Henry de Montherlant
How much do you want it? How much will you pay for yours?
I seek freedom from the constraints of “having to do something that makes no altruistic or elegant sense”. The price I pay? I live a largely lonely life. I have to establish my own path while most around me follow a well-worn groove. I invent most of my days from scratch, and don’t have the safety net of a routine that is ordained by the world I live in.
And I go without.
To be free I believe one has to be relatively unencumbered. Stuff makes us forget de Montehrlant’s truism. Stuff sees us go to Bunnings on weekends and fret over what to wear in the morning. It lead us to being caught up in juggling storage costs and yelling at the kids to not put their mugs on the new coffee table. Stuff fills up the space required to feel and know freedom.
Freedom is a state of mind, right. You turn a switch. You choose. Victor Frankl was imprisoned in Auchwitz, but chose freedom. I choose to be free. When you do, you start to naturally go without. It just happens.
As my mediation teacher Tim says, when you really want something, you have to surrender preferences.
Which does, indeed, feel noble and worthwhile.
When you surrender a preference it says to “the universe”, I’m serious about this; see, I’ve already started to be this way.
You surrender a preference for stuff, for safety, for not having to think for yourself it says to “life” or “the universe” I’m serious about being free. In fact I already am.
Yeah?
