Are you really free?

‘Illusion of a free life’

I grew up in a very liberal household. We did not do anything conventional. Right from the daily way of life – from waking up to sleeping, to eating habits, studying habits, working habits, living habits, playing habits; to our social life – our family ties, extended family relationships, friendships, rituals, religious beliefs; were all contrary to popular belief, and definitely fell out of the acceptable contours of society. My parents, my sibling and myself led unconventional lifestyles, chose unconventional careers and lived a ‘free’ life. I think we were contrarian in nature – we did not follow any rules. We were totally and fully free.

There is a very deep insight here. Just because we are living contrary to the society’s rules, did not mean we are really living a free life. I did think my life was full of freedom because I did not follow the ‘norms that was set by society’. But was I really living a free life?

It was only recently that I realized, ‘I did not live a free life after all’. Everything I wanted to do was based on the acceptance of those around me. I did not need acceptance of the society at large – that barrier never existed due to my upbringing, but I needed acceptance at every step from my little society of a handful of people. I needed acceptance even for the small things such as eating habits, spending habits, sharing habits, living habits. All these habits were tied up with a pretty ribbon into little boxes that resembled a series of tiny cages. Cages that were meant to remain chained, so that I functioned within the contours of the acceptance I received, so that it looked pretty from the outside and probably resembled the rising lava of a volcano on the inside.

To sum up, while we were contrarian to the society at large, we lived a completely restricted life in our own little coup. Rules that I had made for myself, unaware that I was following them. ‘Free living’ was only an illusion that was a convenient belief system. Actual life was ‘contrary to free living’. That’s when it dawned upon me that we are all ‘victims’ to some set of rules, however liberal we may feel we are.

Contrary to popular belief

The origin of the ‘rule book’ lies in our childhood. We are always told what to do from the time we are born - the moment we gain consciousness as children. We are told how to brush, how to walk, how to sit, how to eat, how to talk, how to think! These are packaged and given to us as ‘values’, ‘good habits’ or ‘important virtues to possess’.

The reason we are ‘taught’ everything instead of letting us ‘learn’ naturally is because as parents we all think we need to tell our children what to do so that they can fit well into their surroundings and live the right way. The question is ‘will letting them learn’ not lead to living the right way? Isn’t it time we wake up and question whether ‘being told what to do’ is really important? Isn’t it time we avoid handing over rules packaged in a freedom coated brown bag?

Sometimes I wonder, maybe some rules are important… we need to tell our children that they need to eat at a certain time a day, that they shouldn’t be stealing or lying. On second thoughts, ‘no they don’t need to be told anything’. Any human being learns in two ways – by imitation or by instinct. Things like hunger, sleep, defecating, etc. are all based on biological instinct... they will fall asleep, they will defecate, they will be hungry and we can guide them on what to do until they can do it themselves... like we will guide them on where to defecate and why there is a certain place for it… hygiene!?!

With respect to speaking the truth, avoiding stealing, eating at a particular time because its healthy, being polite and so on, they will learn by imitation. If we are going to teach them to be polite and be rude ourselves, they will pick up more via imitation than the words they hear. ‘Letting them learn’ is probably way better than ‘teaching them’ every step of the way.

How being ‘taught’ affected me?

As a contrarian I selected the religion I wanted to follow, the clothes I wanted to wear, the education I wanted to pursue, the career I wanted to choose and so on. This advantage (and I am hugely grateful to my parents for that) has made me believe that I have lived outside of the rule book. But I am probably worse off than most others because I am under the impression that I live outside of the rule book-thereby providing no room for improvement. I am worse off because of the misconception that ‘contrarian (to society) is breaking the rules, so I haven’t lived by any rule’. This misconception had led me to close my eyes to all the rules I do live by. And I lived by so many of them. I am not looking at the glass as half empty here, like I said I am grateful… but being aware of the fact that I follow rules that restrict freedom of thought and pursuance of ‘free will’ and that I would like to change some of that, allows great room for improvement.

The ‘perfect life of a contrarian’

Why did I go through with the rules? Because we all want to be part of a ‘good story’. As large consumers of media and the movies, we have seen ideal on the large screen, we are exposed to happy endings, and inadvertently made to believe that that’s the story we want to have. I went through with believing that ‘I lived a life without rules’ because that’s the story I wanted to tell the world. I wanted to tell the world that I am unique, different, living a perfect life, not shadowed by the rules of society.

Failure is looked upon as something we don’t really want to be friends with. Realizing that ‘I may be following a truck load of rules’ under the garb of ‘living a contrarian life’ is failing at some level. Accepting this failure will take away from the ‘success story’ I make my life out to be. The incessant need to put a perfect story out there, coaxed me to lie to myself. It made me stand as a barrier in between the ‘true potential of a perfect life’ and the ‘illusion of a perfect life’.

A Transition that changed my life

Accepting the failure made things light. It allowed me the window to ‘stop living by the illusion of perfection’ and look at what I would really like to change. Accepting the failure made me free at some level, helped me explore possibilities like never before, adding more success to the ‘so called success story’.

Freedom from ‘the rules I had set for myself’ is:

‘Not having a perfect life and being okay with it’

‘Having the maturity to and embrace failure and transition it into an opportunity’.

‘Being comfortable with being selfish or nurturing oneself’ (to perspectives 😊)

‘Knowing that if someone isn’t comfortable with your actions, you are at different wavelengths’

‘Not feeling the need to impress everyone in your social circle – large or small’

‘Knowledge that people don’t accept you or your actions because of their quality of unacceptance’… you have a choice between second guessing your actions OR feeling empathy and nurture towards them and their quality being unable to accept.

I recently saw the film ‘white tiger’ on Netflix. I truly believe that everything that is being brought to us is brought to us for a reason. I was living in contemplation over this the last few days, and then chanced upon this film on Netflix. The story is about the protagonist breaking out of a coup – the coup being a conditioned mindset (of a servant in his case). The film emphasized on how ‘the mindset of a servant’ is something that his ancestors had lived by and that was passed on from one generation to another. But the protagonist had realized that he had a choice (like most of his ancestors did) and also the opportunity (which they probably did not have) to break out of the mindset. Watch the film to see whether he really did break out of it or not…😊 It opened my eyes to the possibility of breaking out of the mind-set I had held for over decades, and rise to truly living a ‘free life’ – graduating from being free of societal rules to being free of the conditional rules I had set for myself.

Because these rules are only in our minds. It is our mind that believes that something is the way it should be, because we have been brainwashed through generations, just like the protagonist had been brainwashed into the servant mindset. If that little society of yours has a problem with who you are or the life that you live, then the question to ask is 'do you have a problem with it?' If you don’t, then ask you mind to support you and not that little or the big society that you are unknowingly a slave to.

Wishing all of you to break free from whatever rules you desire to break free from... To more awareness, clarity and decisiveness to all of you.