Freedom

 As a kid, I always wanted to be an adult because adults could restrict me. They set the rules I had to live by. I was small and couldn’t defend myself enough. Food, clothes, a roof over my head, and various conveniences were provided by adults, and in return, I had to follow their rules. I desperately wanted to be an adult because I thought adults decided how to live. In reality, I didn’t want to be an adult—I wanted to be free from other people’s rules. I thought adults were like that, able to make their own decisions and live as they pleased. That misconception stuck with me for too long. Even now, understanding it, I don’t really want to let go of it. Or rather, I want to, but it’s hard.

When I was little, my movement was restricted. I was always given boundaries—where I could go and where I couldn’t. I was allowed to play near the house and visit friends who lived nearby, but I couldn’t go too far. I was told when to go to bed and when to wake up, given a daily schedule, told where to go and what to do. Adults told me who I could be friends with and who I couldn’t. They could buy me things because they had money. I wanted to grow up fast because I saw freedom in them and didn’t notice their restrictions. The closest adults, who spent the most time with me and whom I could look up to, were my parents. I was too small, and the edges of my world often stopped at my parents—they didn’t go further. Though I was told where I could and couldn’t go, my parents had the same restrictions. They couldn’t just travel wherever they wanted until a visa center allowed it. Though they set my daily schedule, they were told when to show up for work and had to adjust. They didn’t wake up when they wanted but when they had to. Though my parents had jobs and money, we barely had enough. They couldn’t afford to buy tasty things all the time or new clothes—we often shopped at secondhand stores. Though my parents were adults, they couldn’t even travel around their own country, let alone fly to another for a beach vacation or to see landmarks. I didn’t notice that my parents were in the same cage. The only difference was that while my cage was mostly built by others, theirs was mostly made of their own materials. Their cage had a foundation of government, state borders, and the need to earn money, but they built the rest themselves.
It’s no surprise that when I grew up, I started doing the same. Instead of continuing to seek freedom as an adult, I began building my own cage. My life filled up with compromises I thought were necessary to live, but they only killed me more. The compromises crushed my will harder and harder. I stopped living for myself—I completely forgot what that meant. Did I ever know it in my life? Maybe when I was really little. But back then, I wasn’t independent. Now I can be independent, but I can’t truly be free. There are still people telling me what I must do and what I can’t, even if I’m not hurting anyone. This isn’t the life I dreamed of as a kid.

So what do I do? I believe no one should infringe on another’s will. In that case, all rules restricting my will are a great injustice. That’s what injustice means to me. And that means only one thing: no one has the right to dictate how another person should live. So, any form of authority over a person is akin to a slave-owning system, just simplified with compromises and called democracy. Well, then the most logical solution for me is anarchy. Does that make me an anarchist? I used to think anarchists were a bunch of idiots who just wanted to smash everything. Now I need to rethink that. If you weave one simple rule into anarchy—“no one should infringe on another’s freedom”—anarchy takes on utopian traits. Everything would be done voluntarily; no one would impose their beliefs unless asked. People would finally start caring for themselves, not their illusory future. Maybe we’d learn to negotiate about truly important things again. And there it is. The thought. The thought I was waiting for. The thought screaming at me: “This is too good to be true!!! It’s too simple; it doesn’t work that way.” Yes, there’s truth in that—it doesn’t work that way, or rather, I don’t remember it ever working that way. Yes, anarchy simplifies things so much that it raises tons of questions about basic needs and safety. For example, if everyone does what they want, will anyone bother maintaining electricity? Will factories and plants making food and clothes keep running? Will water still flow from home faucets? Who’ll protect people from animals and the scariest predator on this planet—other people? Not everyone will follow the single rule of “not infringing on another’s freedom.” Some will break it with blatant audacity, others will try to skirt it, thinking they’re cleverer. Either way, there’ll be those who don’t want to live like that. Weak, dependent people won’t be able to. A person with dependencies is a scary person. Most people are like that now, including me. I’m trying to break free, but it’s not easy. Some dependencies are hard to even notice. We’ve tangled ourselves up so much that we don’t know where freedom ends and dependency begins. Recently, someone asked what kind of freedom I want. I didn’t get why freedom needed categories, so I asked what “kind” of freedom meant. They said freedom comes in different forms and gave financial freedom as an example. Many think financial freedom means being rich and doing whatever money allows. But I don’t see freedom in that. First, a person can only do what money permits—money sets the boundaries. It’s almost funny: the thing people see as freedom actually limits them. But it’s not even about that. If money gives someone a good life, without it, they lose their artificially “good” life. Knowing the tragedy of loss, people chain themselves with the fear of losing it. But how can you lose something that was never truly yours? For me, financial freedom means finances can’t affect my inner happiness or my ability to make the right decisions for myself without compromises.

I think the question of true freedom will stay open for me for a long time.