Freedom.

A powerful word.

Something most of us creators deeply value.

But when you take a step back to think about what is Freedom, and what it means to be free…

You quickly realize that it isn't just "the ability to do what you want where you want" or "not having a boss giving you orders every day".

Freedom can be analyzed through several lenses.

According to the law, it is what we can or can't do as citizens…

According to nature, it is what we can or can't do considering the laws of the universe…

But we can also view Freedom as an inner feeling.

We all agree that we don't have absolute freedom.

Our freedom as citizens stops as other citizens' freedom starts.

And whether we accept it or not, we'll never be able to fly on our own with a human body.

(I'm still deeply heartbroken by this fact)

That's why today, I want to approach freedom with this last lens :

The Inner Feeling of Freedom.

Because, if you think about it, that's what most people seek and mean when talking about freedom.

Feeling free.

So this takes us to the first chapter of today's letter :

1. The Freedom Paradox.

a) Modern Slavery

Most people want to be free.

But most people are living a life of modern slavery.

They delegate their thinking to the news and media.

They spend 70% of their life working for someone else's dream.

They live a life of reaction - always subject to the change in their environments.

So why this dichotomy?

Isn't it strange that, in a world where most people say they value being free, most aren't living it, or feeling it inside?

Especially considering that we live in a world where we never had more freedom to choose what we want to learn, where we want to live, and which work we want to undertake?

The harsh truth is, being free is hard as fuck.

The more freedom you have, the more responsibilities you have…

The more parameters you have to take into account when making decisions…

The more choices you have about what to think, what to feel, and what to do…

So the more you are subject to Analysis Paralysis.

(Analysis Paralysis: The more options you have, the harder it is to decide because of the fear of not making the right decision, resulting in an incapability to take action)

Most people are afraid of contemplating their own freedom because it's scary.

When an infinite number of paths open up to you, how do you know which one is the right one?

So we prefer not to think about it and let society's limiting beliefs that have been projected onto us since birth dictate what we do.

We prefer to discard our freedom for safety.

b) The Symptoms

But we know what this leads people to :

↱ An Unfulfilling Life

↱ A Lack of Sense and Meaning

↱ Anxiety, Stress, and Depression

The problem is that being free means having total ownership of your life.

Nobody else to blame; but you.

Nobody else to be angry with; but you.

Nobody else to put the responsibilities on; but you.

And this, for most people, is unbearable.

They can't pay the price of Freedom, which is Uncertainty.

So they pay the price of Safety, which is Freedom.

c) What we Crave for.

But deeply within, people crave to feel free.

Everyone wants to :

↱ Be closer to their true selves,

↱ Reach a higher state of consciousness,

↱ Release themselves from the shackles of judgment, pain and anxiety.

They want to feel free to create a life in alignment with their intrinsic values.

There's no wonder why most people have bad addictions.

According to the French chiropractor Nicolas Proupain :

"Any structure that does not follow its purpose self-destructs"

Because people are afraid of being free to live a life according to their values, they neglect them, destroying themselves in the process.

Most of the compulsive and self-destructive behaviors that you experience in your life are just a sign that your intrinsic values aren't nourished.

For example, I'm always battling with my addiction to cigarettes.

I have stopped and relapsed multiple times.

("It's easy to stop cigarette, I've done it a hundred times")

But this addiction is just the symptom that I'm not living according to my highest self and values yet.

I could elaborate on this point for an entire letter, so let's get back to the main point: Freedom.

Now that we have established that :

↱ Most people want to feel free;

↱ But most can't pay the price for it;

↱ So they live a life of modern slavery;

Indulging in destructing behaviors in the process…

Let's explore what it means to be free, and what truly prevents us from being free.

2. What Prevents Freedom

a) The Freedom Traps

According to Harry Brown, author of "How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World" freedom is the ability to live your life as you want.

He starts the book by defining a series of 14 traps that prevent us from being free.

A Freedom Trap is composed of 3 major elements :

1. It is an assumption that is widely held by a majority of people

2. It is not true when you examine it closely

3. It inhibits your freedom by accepting it
   
   

The most fundamental Trap of them all is the "Identity Trap".

It is the belief that you should be something other than what you are and act according to what people expect of you.

When you say something because you think people expect you to say it - instead of saying what you truly think - you are falling into this trap.

The other traps are :

The Intellectual Trap: Believing your emotions must conform to a certain standard.

The Emotional Trap: Believing you can make important decisions under strong emotions.

The Morality Trap: Believing that you must abide by a code of conduct that has been determined by somebody else rather than you and which may not fit your nature at all

The Altruism Trap: Believing that absolute selflessness would make the world better

The Group Trap: Believing that the more, the better in every situation.

The Government Trap: Believing that the government performs some useful function that you must support unconditionally because they have this absolute power you don't have.

The Despair Trap: Believing that you cannot move from where you are, that nothing will ever change, that you have too many problems to get out of and that happiness is a myth.

The Rights Trap: Expecting that appealing to your "rights" will provide you with what you want, when, in reality, nobody owes you anything.

The Utopia Trap: Waiting for society to change to feel free on the inside.

The Burning Issue Trap: Believing a pressing social issue requires your immediate attention and participation over everything else.

The Previous Investment Trap: Factoring in the time, effort, and money already spent to make a new decision. It's basically the Engagement Bias.

The Box Trap: A box is any uncomfortable situation that restricts your individual freedom. You get trapped in the box when you consider that the cost required to get out of it is too high to be taken into consideration.

The Certainty Trap: Thinking that some decisions present no risk whatsoever. But the only certain thing in this world is uncertainty. Seeking security and avoiding risks is often riskier in the long run.

I could elaborate for a whole newsletter on each of these traps, but this quick overview allows us to easily understand why it's so hard to feel free.

We have so many hard-coded biases in our hardware due to millennia of evolution that it's very easy to fall into one of these traps.

Our attachment to material things and external circumstances also prevent us from being free and distract us from our life mission.

b) Dokkodo

That's where I found the philosophy of the famous swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi, known for being the "Sword Saint" interesting.

Before his death, he retired to a cave and wrote, the Dokkodo, 21 principles to live according to "The Way" for his favorite disciple.

Dokkōdō means "The path of solitude", "the path to go alone", or "the Way to follow alone".

And I believe that, as creators, we also follow our own Dokkōdō.

The 21 principles are :

1) Accept everything just the way it is.

2) Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.

3) Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling.

4) Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.

5) Be detached from desire your whole life long.

6) Do not regret what you have done.

7) Never be jealous.

8) Never let yourself be saddened by a separation.

9) Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself nor others.

10) Do not let yourself be guided by the feeling of lust or love.

11) In all things have no preferences.

12) Be indifferent to where you live.

13) Do not pursue the taste of good food.

14) Do not hold on to possessions you no longer need.

15) Do not act following customary beliefs.

16) Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful.

17) Do not fear death.

18) Do not seek to possess either goods or fiefs for your old age.

19) Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help.

20) You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honor.

21) Never stray from the Way.

Even though they embody a very stoic, minimalist, and ascetic philosophy for life, all of these principles have one goal :

Freeing us from distractions to better follow "the Way".

We live in a world of abundant distractions, of endless gratification.

And this fact is, in my opinion, symptomatic of the lack of sense, meaning, and freedom that most people feel inside.

We need to constantly distract ourselves from this inner discomfort to keep on living.

My favorite quotes of his are :

“There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.”

And :

“Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is.And you must bend to its power or live a lie.”

Both of these quotes illustrate 2 powerful principles:

1. Freedom is an internal state

2. Our incapability to see the world for what it is, instead of what we want it to be is the source of our suffering.
   
   

3) The Untethered Soul

This dichotomy between reality and the mental model of reality that we experience in our mind is deeply talked about in the book "The Untethered Soul" by Michael A. Singer

According to his work, the source of our suffering is our inability to deal with reality for what it is.

Because Reality is "too real" for most of us, we temper it with the mind.

We re-create the outside world inside ourselves and then live in the mind.

We are constantly narrating our lives in our minds, judging and attributing labels to external events.

"This is good, this is bad, I like this, I don't like that".

This constant inner talk is how our mind tricks us into thinking we have a semblance of control over reality.

Without it, we would be haunted by the idea that we have, in fact, no to very little control over a majority of things.

According to Michael :

"To attain true inner freedom, you must be able to objectively watch your problems instead of being lost in them."

You are not your thoughts.

You are not your inner narrator.

A tree isn't a tree because you verbalize it in your head, it just is.

What you really are is the one observing these thoughts forming in your head.

What he calls "The Observer".

The premise for the affirmation "You are not your thought" is the following :

As soon as there is a relation between something observed and someone observing it, it means both of them are separate entities.

If you can observe a chair, you are not the chair.

So because we are the one who watches the voice, we are not the voice.

"Come to know the one who watches the voice, and you will come to know one of the great mysteries of creation". - Michael A. Singer

By being able to step back into the seat of the observer, we can decide how we react to external circumstances.

It gives us back our ability to choose.

Our free will.

If you are always reacting to your environment, you aren't free.

True Freedom is the ability to choose how you react to any external circumstances and not be affected by them.

So now that we've seen that only true freedom is inner freedom…

How do we actually become free?

3. How to free yourself

a) The 2 Types Of Freedom :

Harry Brown distinguished two types of Freedom :

1. Positive Freedom: The Freedom TO

2. Negative Freedom: The Freedom FROM
   

I believe that the first step is to free you FROM what prevents you from being free in the first place.

Aka all the traps we've seen above.

Identity. Ego. Government. Inner Monologue. External Validation. Status. Power. Materialism. Emotions. Morality. Altruism. Peer Pressure. Despair. Fear. Anxiety. Biases. Certainty. Safety. Expectations. Limiting Beliefs. Your Past. Instant Gratification.



(Yes, that's already enough work for a few dozen lifetimes)

But the more you can remove the shackles that keep you locked into the ground, the more you can elevate to your higher, free self.

It's the Via Negativa by Nassim Taleb.

Addiction by Subtraction.

Less is More.

Of course, you won't ever finish this work, we are beautiful, imperfect human beings.

But making the unconscious conscious prevents us from being controlled by it.

As Carl Gustave Jung said :

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

b) Diving Inside

Everything starts with clarity.

Clarity comes by diving inside.

Meditation. Introspection. Journaling.

Your life is a gold mine of information about yourself whose ore is just waiting for you to go mine.

That's why having a journaling and data-tracking system in place is fundamental for a creator to achieve self-actualization.

Because it allows you to extract this precious data about yourself so you can make more conscious decisions.

Remember: there is nothing outside of yourself, everything is within.

c) Find your "Way".

The third step is to ponder what you want to be free TO do.

What is your purpose? Your Life's Work? Your Way? Your Ikigai?

You name it.

Start with a blurry image, and try to grab it, despite how hazy it seems.

Your life purpose is the infinite project that you can seek all your life but you will never reach.

It is like you: in perpetual motion.

Your vision will constantly evolve day by day.

Sometimes you'll feel deeply connected to it, and sometimes you'll feel lost, but that's the beauty of the journey.

What matters is the journey of seeking it, not reaching it.

Reaching it would be the most disappointing experience in your life, as we stop valuing everything that's in our possession.

It's human nature.

So start with what (or who) inspires you, as its essence contains what you deeply value in your life.

And recalibrate all your life as you gain more data through your experiences.

Seeking freedom is hard.

It's the work of a lifetime.

But like how, sometimes, the questions are more interesting than the answers…

The journey toward Freedom is more important than actually reaching it.

Thanks for reading this Letter.

If you are new in this journey…

Welcome to the Ark.

And for those who already embarked…

Welcome back.

Noah.