Do You Want To Live Like a River Flows?

The freedom fallacy

From inspirational quotes to political rallies, rock songs to meditative chants, we’re in love with the idea of freedom. Equally, from wedding vows to employment contracts, we’re always searching for the security that comes with being bound. Un-free.

I was in one of several very free periods in my life (unemployed and single, in this case) when I came across this quote and felt the need to reply to it.

I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding. John O’Donohue

But what if you’re afraid?

Afraid of the unfolding, afraid of the surprise, Afraid of being carried away, Afraid of the rocks, the fish, the animals, Afraid of your own wildness, lack of control.

Afraid of the very freedom and flow That turns you into nothing at all.

Nothing in its vastness, meaningless and free, One with all and therefore nothing at all. Being so free that all experience is transient, Nothing holds you, nothing stops you.

What if you want to be held?

Freedom is having the power to choose our own chains. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I came across that one serendipitously right at the nerve-wracking beginning of my first relationship after my divorce. I needed time to digest it though because, having been bitten by commitment, I was twice shy of anything that remotely resembled it.

So, I chose my chain — a little wisp of a thing, easy to break at the slightest tug.

I left many similarly delicate chains littered across countries before my reply to John finally helped me realize that choosing my chains wasn’t helping me feel free. And that being free kinda sucked.

Courage (and freedom) isn’t the absence of fear (or chains) but the triumph over it. Nelson Mandela (and Wanita)

It seems obvious to say it, yet many of us don’t realize that freedom is a state of mind, not a state of being. We need structure; we need roots; we need boundaries. The most creative are those given boundaries to explore and to break.

My father was a freedom fighter imprisoned on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela for 13 years. His ongoing battle while there, for any little chance of freedom, caused him to spend nearly a year in solitary confinement. It was then denied all human-given freedoms, that he mastered the state of mind.

The urge to be free drives progress

The drive towards freedom gives us the motivation to break the chains we don’t want. Individually and collectively, we are comfortable, and even happy, to be tightly chained as long as we’re ok with where we are. But when the call to reach for more comes, it sounds very much like a cry for freedom.

That freedom is not a destination, it’s a vehicle, simply the wiping of the slate. If more doesn’t come to fill it, we soon question the freedom itself.

I don’t think most people want to live free, like a flowing river. But perhaps the idea gives us pause and makes us take stock of where we are. Perhaps finding the idea alluring is the first seed that starts a change. The first strumming of that cry is, in fact, The Call.

Heed The Call.

But don’t stop at freedom. Find your more.