How to Experience Freedom and Escape Anxiety
Dear Reader,
Welcome to an unusual story.
Before we continue, I’d like you to stop for a moment. I’d like you to look at the back of your hand. Whichever one you write with (if you’re able).
It’s a common phrase, “I know it [some city, perhaps] like the back of my hand.” If that’s literally true, you probably don’t know much about whatever you’re referring to.
Sure, you use your hands a lot. But how often do you stop and consider them? They’re always there, and you rely on them (assuming you are able-bodied).
Your hands are incredibly useful to you. I wonder if you even notice when you use them? It’s like this with all the best tools. They blur into the background.
Just like a well-designed phone. If it’s good, you stop thinking about it. Until it stops working, of course.
Then crash. It’s back at the front of your mind.
There’s a simple truth here. When a tool breaks, you know it’s broken. You use your pump to pump, your brush to brush, and your phone to do everything else.
You are surrounded by items with clear functions. Even your individual body parts seem to share in this. You know what your lungs are for, as with your stomach and your eyes.
You believe tools can be improved, and so it is with your body. You may go to the gym to strengthen your arms and legs, making them better tools.
For many of us, that is where our interest in self-improvement ends. To be a better person may simply mean ‘to be a better functioning physical specimen.’
But this is not so for all and, I think, for you.
I think you want to improve yourself, and you know that doesn’t stop with your body.
Would you be interested in a blog entitled, ‘5 Productivity Life-Hacks you’ll wish you knew YEARS ago?’ A little click-bate-y, sure. But I think you might read it because you want to be better.
Better is good. Worse is bad. Productivity is valuable. These are simple points, but worth reminding ourselves of for what comes next.
Let’s look back and consider the path we’ve just charted. You have your tools beyond yourself, like your phone. And you’ve got your bodily assets, too.
And then you have your skills, such as your knowledge and practice of productivity.
But what are you producing? What should you be producing? What on Earth — and I mean this very literally — are you doing?
There are people who are content going through life without looking up. If that is you, you have the envy of many of your less fulfilled fellow beings. You’re turning a crank and you don’t care why.
Yet Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” You may be content to put your tools to a purpose that is unclear to you. If so, feel free to stop reading now.
Still here?
If so, you’re probably desperate to know where I’m going with this. I won’t prevaricate any longer. My message is this; your mind is not a standard tool — it decides thing. It’s a unique tool because it controls — or should control — all the other tools.
This puts the ball in your court. Your mind is a decision making tool. This is much the same as calling you a tool (sorry). But since you’re the tool that gets to call the shots, your dented pride can at least console itself with that.
Get good at making decisions. You want the best tools (like the best phone)? Of course you do. Nobody picks the worst of two options without good reason. If all things are equal, you’ll choose the best tool available.
So why do you yearn after better tools of lesser importance (like cars, towels, or speedboats) and leave your most important tool neglected? If you won’t let the blade of your artisinal meat cleaver dull, why don’t you sharpen your mind? Isn’t that more important to you?
Of course, this only matters if you’re going to use it.
You can spend your life renting out your limbs — and perhaps your brain — with no objective in mind. You’ll do this for survival’s sake, perhaps.
“If I quit my job, I’ll starve.” Very possibly. I certainly wouldn’t want you to do anything rash. I just want you to know that if your present daily existence is unacceptable to you — this is a general point, not just about work — then you have other options.
If you choose to keep doing what you’re doing, know that this is a choice as much as any of the alternatives. It may take more energy to shift into a new gear or establish a new pattern of behavior, but it’s no more of a choice than sticking to your present course.
Your mind is not like your other tools. It should be a directing force in your life. But is it? Is it fulfilling its ‘function?’ That is a question only you can answer.
Freud called the bit of your mind that directs change your ego (in his work it has nothing to do with thinking you’re a big-shot). It evaluates your behavior and checks it against the super-ego — which is like your rule-book. Your beliefs about who you should be in an ideal world.
If — according to Freud’s model — your ego is doing its job, it’ll have you foregoing the appetitive desires of your Id (the part of you that wants to indulge in all your wants) and steer you towards the kinds of actions your super-ego says you should be doing.
Freud has a reputation for complexity, but I think that’s pretty simple.
In Stoic philosophy, Freud’s ‘ego’ is known as the ‘ruling faculty’ or simply ‘the will.’ To Stoic’s this is the part of your mind you want in the driver’s seat. You want it evaluating situations, working to understand them, and making actual decisions.
In this sense, it’s a tool. It’s got a job to do. I wonder if you’ve worked to improve this tool of yours? How good are you at understanding the world around you, and making decisions about it? Have you checked? Have your done anything — consciously — to improve in this area?
If not, you’re not firing on all cylinders. In fact, you’re asleep at the wheel.
And what of your ‘super-ego’ — to borrow from Freud’s once more? Have you examined your beliefs? Considered what you think ‘good’ is? If you don’t know what ‘good’ is, how can you claim to be a good person?
“Pfft. I know what good is. It’s doing nice stuff, and being kind to people. Everybody knows. It’s just obvious.”
I’m glad you appreciate kindness. And it’s true that we might all have some basic inclination to certain kinds of actions. We’ve all absorbed certain common assumptions and practices, so while we might not have a clear idea in our heads of what ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are, we unconsciously or semi-consciously follow a set of practices that are usually agreed to be okay. Kind of.
Of course, we don’t all agree on right and wrong. That’s why philosophy exists. Have you purely by chance been born and raised to follow the best possible code of conduct, able to discern right from wrong without trying??
What do you have to fear from subjecting your beliefs to scrutiny? That you will discover you have been wrong in the past? If you have been, that is already the case. The only difference that will come about is that now you will know, and be able to do better in the future.
Do you want that or not?
The truth is this. Freedom is not freedom unless you have control. You only have control if your mind — not your appetites and desires — is calling the shots. If you let your desires rule you, you’re a prisoner to pleasure and pain.
You’ll be dragged around as though with a magnet by whoever controls access to the externals that you love — drugs, drink, food, whatever they are— and you’ll never be truly free.
But if you know this then you will live freely and escape anxiety:
You make decisions everyday already. Start making the right ones, and take responsibility for them. As long as you are doing that, be content.
