What is the opposite of freedom? Security? Why the heck do we think security is the opposite of freedom? Wouldn’t the opposite of free be not free? To be stuck, to be rooted, to be anchored, to be attached, to be controlled, to be locked, to be restricted?
Maybe security is the opposite of freedom in the sense that often to secure ourselves we put up walls. We lock the door. Secure the gate. Throw away the key. We’re safe but we’re trapped. Well, we think we’re safe. Being locked up can drive us crazy. We locked people up in the loony bin to keep the rest of us safe, and in the process probably made them more loony. We throw people in jail and lock them away from other people and it seems to make them more lonely and perhaps more dangerous. Not because they’re inherently dangerous but because they’re trapped.
Again, I wouldn’t say that the opposite to freedom is security but a restriction, a hinderance on one’s movements, one’s actions, at the behest of others.
I feel free when I can do whatever I want. When things flow. I feel unfree when I have to do what I’m told. When other people tell me what to do. When they decide what I will do. When I tell myself what to do, instead of letting my self tell myself what to do.
I’ve been thinking about romantic relationships lately. Alan Watts says that a marriage should be a mutual setting free of each other. To me, it seems that a marriage would come with lots of rules and restrictions on one’s behavior. You’re not allowed to spend time with other men or women. You can’t kiss others. You can’t connect emotionally with others. You can’t drink too much. You can’t leave the seat up. Often these rules come from the other person and more often they come from the internalized voices we have.
Over the holidays I realized that I’ve been contained by an internalized rule regarding business: “You need to have a plan that will make you money.” And because I couldn’t figure it out, I was going crazy. Crazy like a man locked up in the loony bin. And then I realized that I don’t want to be stuck to that rule. I don’t need that constraint. I want to move freely.
And now I feel free.
How amazing it is to create from the inside out rather than from the outside in. After all, we’re animals meant to roam and explore the world, not to sit inside boxes looking at boxes trying to collect paper to put in boxes.