A Letter to a Human Being on… Rebellious Freedom 

Dear Beloved Human Being,

Sometimes we can get so caught up in our imagination, in the stories we make up to make sense of the world and ourselves. Moreover, to feel like we fit into this world, we overidentify with so many things! This in itself is not problematic as it is merely our human nature. But I think we fail to realise how our happiness and sense of security in self is dependent on things to stay constant… This is quite bizarre since the only constant in life (that I can think of right now) is change! For instance, we sometimes overidentify with personality traits, objects, our position in life, our jobs, our roles, and sometimes even larger social constructs like race, sexuality, religion, spirituality etc. Then, we become distraught when we either feel like someone is attacking our identity in this way or feel disconnected from the things we have overidentified with. 

I am not saying we should not identify with things in this life. But there is a danger to overidentifying with something. We can be hurt and feel like the world is against us, which takes us away from being free and living a life filled with joy and love for ourselves and the world around us. For instance, let’s say we overidentify with a personality trait like openness or kindness. Sometimes we become overwhelmed and might respond in a way that is not kind or open. Sometimes we grow and change and adopt different viewpoints. What happens if we hold on too tightly to the things we are growing out of? Well, we are probably riddled with guilt or sometimes feel lost. With the more sensitive stuff like the social constructs, we suddenly start to feel like we have to control others and become trapped in our rage and defensiveness when someone dares to differ from us in view or struggles to accept us. The funny thing is that we then blame others for our hurt, but we are caging ourselves by letting our freedom and happiness depend on the voices, actions, behaviours and emotions of others. 

What would happen, dear beloved human being, when we realise there is sooooo much more to us than any story we can make up in our minds? Before any of these things started to develop, and even before we began to understand social constructs, we were a whole person, living this life, exploring with curious and open eyes, basking in the energy and light of the vibrant world around us, and just being. What if we could, just for a moment, put down the labels we have assigned to ourselves and reconnect with the deeper light, the deeper life, the deeper energy? What if we could reconnect, just for a moment, with our deep selves that were there before anything else? Before our minds started to get in our way? The moment we realise that who we really are cannot be lost or taken away by anything or anyone, we begin to see a glimpse of what it feels like to be completely free. 

Like Albert Camus once said: “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”