Everything Is F*cked

Real Freedom
The only true form of freedom, the only ethical form of freedom, is through
self-limitation. It is not the privilege of choosing everything you want in your
life, but rather, choosing what you will give up in your life.
This  is  not  only  real  freedom,  this  is  the  only freedom. Diversions come
and go. Pleasure never lasts. Variety loses its meaning. But you will always be

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able to choose what you are willing to sacrifice, what you are willing to give
up.
This  sort  of  self-denial  is  paradoxically  the  only  thing  that  expands  real
freedom  in  life.  The  pain  of  regular  physical  exercise  ultimately  enhances
your physical freedom—your strength, mobility, endurance, and stamina. The
sacrifice  of  a  strong  work  ethic  gives  you  the  freedom  to  pursue  more  job
opportunities, to steer your own career trajectory, to earn more money and the
benefits  that  come  with  it.  The  willingness  to  engage  in  conflict  with  others
will free you to talk to anyone, to see if they share your values and beliefs, to
discover what they can add to your life and what you can add to theirs.
You  can  become  freer  right  now  simply  by  choosing  the  limitations  you
want to impose on yourself. You can choose to wake up earlier each morning,
to block your email until midafternoon each day, to delete social media apps
from  your  phone.  These  limitations  will  free  you  because  they  will  liberate
your time, attention, and power of choice. They treat your consciousness as an
end in itself.
If you struggle to go to the gym, then rent a locker and leave all your work
clothes there so you have to go each morning. Limit yourself to two to three
social events each week, so you are forced to spend time with the people you
care about most. Write a check to a close friend or family member for three
thousand dollars and tell them that if you ever smoke a cigarette again, they
get to cash it.
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Ultimately,  the  most  meaningful  freedom  in  your  life  comes  from  your
commitments, the things in life for which you have chosen to sacrifice. There
is emotional freedom in my relationship with my wife that I would never be
able to reproduce even if I dated a thousand other women. There is freedom in
my having played guitar for twenty years—a deeply artistic expression—that
I  could  not  get  if  I  just  memorized  dozens  of  songs.  There  is  freedom  in
having lived in one place for fifty years—an intimacy and familiarity with the
community and culture—that you cannot replicate no matter how much of the
world you’ve seen.
Greater  commitment  allows  for  greater  depth.  A  lack  of  commitment
requires superficiality.
In the last ten years, there has been a trend toward “life hacking.” People
want to learn a language in a month, to visit fifteen countries in a month, to
become a champion martial artist in a week, and they come up with all sorts
of “hacks” to do it. You see it all the time on YouTube and social media these
days:  people  undertaking  ridiculous  challenges  just  to  show  it  can  be  done.
This “hacking” of life, though, simply amounts to trying to reap the rewards

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of commitment without actually making a commitment. It’s another sad form
of fake freedom. It’s empty calories for the soul.
I recently read about a guy who memorized moves from a chess program
to prove he could “master” chess in a month. He didn’t learn anything about
chess, didn’t engage with the strategy, develop a style, learn tactics. Nope, he
approached  it  like  a  gigantic  homework  assignment:  memorize  the  moves,
win  once  against  some  highly  ranked  player,  then  declare  mastery  for
yourself.
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This  is  not  winning  anything.  This  is  merely  the  appearance  of  winning
something.  It  is  the  appearance  of  commitment  and  sacrifice  without  the
commitment  and  sacrifice.  It  is  the  appearance  of  meaning  where  there  is
none.
Fake freedom puts us on the treadmill toward chasing more, whereas real
freedom is the conscious decision to live with less.
Fake freedom is addictive: no matter how much you have, you always feel
as  though  it’s  not  enough.  Real  freedom  is  repetitive,  predictable,  and
sometimes dull.
Fake  freedom  has  diminishing  returns:  it  requires  greater  and  greater
amounts  of  energy  to  achieve  the  same  joy  and  meaning.  Real  freedom  has
increasing returns: it requires less and less energy to achieve the same joy and
meaning.
Fake freedom is seeing the world as an endless series of transactions and
bargains  which  you  feel  you’re  winning.  Real  freedom  is  seeing  the  world
unconditionally, with the only victory being over your own desires.
Fake  freedom  requires  the  world  to  conform  to  your  will.  Real  freedom
requires nothing of the world. It is only your will.
Ultimately,  the  overabundance  of  diversion  and  the  fake  freedom  it
produces limits our ability to experience real freedom. The more options we
have,  the  more  variety  before  us,  the  more  difficult  it  becomes  to  choose,
sacrifice,  and  focus.  And  we  are  seeing  this  conundrum  play  out  across  our
culture today.
In 2000, the Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam published his seminal
book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.
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In
it,  he  documents  the  decline  of  civic  participation  across  the  United  States,
arguing  that  people  are  joining  and  participating  less  in  groups,  instead
preferring to do their activities alone, hence the title of the book: More people
bowl  today  than  before,  yet  bowling  leagues  are  going  extinct.  People  are
bowling alone. Putnam wrote about the United States, but this not merely an

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American phenomenon.
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Throughout the book, Putnam shows that this is not limited to recreational
groups  but  is  affecting  everything  from  labor  unions  to  parent-teacher
associations to Rotary clubs to churches to bridge clubs. This atomization of
society  has  significant  effects,  he  argues:  social  trust  has  declined,  with
people becoming more isolated, less politically engaged, and all-around more
paranoid about their neighbors.
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Loneliness is also a growing issue. Last year, for the first time, a majority
of Americans said they were lonely, and new research is suggesting that we’re
replacing a few high-quality relationships in our lives with a large number of
superficial and temporary relationships.
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According to Putnam, the social connective tissue in the country is being
destroyed  by  the  overabundance  of  diversions.  He  argued  that  people  were
choosing to stay home and watch TV, surf the internet, or play video games
rather  than  commit  themselves  to  some  local  organization  or  group.  He  also
predicts the situation will likely only get worse.
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Historically,  when  Westerners  have  looked  at  all  the  oppressed  people
throughout the world, we’ve lamented their lack of fake freedom, their lack of
diversion. People in North Korea can’t read the news or shop for clothes they
like or listen to music that isn’t state sponsored.
But  this  is  not  why  North  Koreans  are  not  free.  They  lack  freedom  not
because  they  are  unable  to  choose  their  pleasures,  but  because  they  are  not
allowed  to  choose  their  pain.  They  are  not  allowed  to  choose  their
commitments freely. They are forced into sacrifices they would not otherwise
want or do not deserve. Pleasure is beside the point—their lack of pleasure is
a mere side effect of their real oppression: their enforced pain.
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Because, today, in most parts of the world, people are now able to choose
their pleasures. They are able to choose what to read and what games to play
and  what  to  wear.  Modern  diversions  are  everywhere.  But  the  tyranny  of  a
new age is achieved not by depriving people of diversions and commitments.
Today’s  tyranny  is  achieved  by  flooding  people  with  so  much  diversion,  so
much  bullshit  information  and  frivolous  distraction,  that  they  are  unable  to
make  smart  commitments.  It’s  Bernays’s  prediction  come  true,  just  a  few
generations  later  than  he  expected.  It  took  the  breadth  and  power  of  the
internet to make his vision of global propaganda campaigns, of governments
and  corporations  silently  steering  the  desires  and  wishes  of  the  masses,  a
reality.
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But let’s not give Bernays too much credit. After all, he did seem like kind

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of a douche balloon.
Besides, there was a man who saw all this coming way before Bernays, a
man  who  saw  the  dangers  of  fake  freedom,  who  saw  the  proliferation  of
diversions and the myopic effect they would have on people’s values, how too
much  pleasure  makes  everyone  childish  and  selfish  and  entitled  and  totally
narcissistic  and  unbearable  on  Twitter.  This  man  was  far  wiser  and  more
influential than anyone you would ever see on a news channel or a TED Talk
stage or a political soapbox, for that matter. This guy was the OG of political
philosophy.  Forget  the  “Godfather  of  Soul,”  this  guy  literally  invented  the
idea of the soul. And he (arguably) saw this whole shitstorm brewing multiple
millennia before anyone else did.