There's Nowhere to Get To but Here

4th of July reflections on the human condition, striving, and inner freedom

If the freedom we seek is freedom from the human condition, we will never be free; if the freedom we seek is freedom within the human condition, we may already be free.

When I was a little boy, I thought being able to buy my own toys would free me. It didn’t. It just left me with more broken toys, and more toys to buy.

When I was a bigger boy, I thought getting to decide what I ate would free me. It didn't. Rather, it forced me to learn self-control.

When I was fifteen, I thought getting a car would free me. It did for a while, but then gas prices went up, and the brakes wore out, and the suspension rusted through.

When I was eighteen, I thought leaving my small town would free me. It didn't. In college, I discovered even more things I wanted to be free from.

When I was single, I thought getting married would free me from loneliness. It didn't. Rather, I discovered loneliness is simply the shadow side of our uniqueness, so it never goes away for good.

When I was a therapist in training, I thought being self-employed would free me. It didn't. It gave me more responsibility.

When I was financially broke, I thought money would free me. It didn't. It left me with more stuff to protect.

When I was ashamed, I thought worthiness would free me. It didn’t, really. It just gave me another angle from which to look at myself.

When you seek freedom from the human condition, you’re lost in a maze with no exit. When you seek freedom within the human condition, you find there was no maze to begin with.

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But, a little voice in my head asks, “where would you be without all those ambitious goals?”

I tried to answer that question in response to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Letters to Love prompt last Sunday, in which you ask Love a question and record the response. Here’s what I heard:

Dear Kelly,

I hope you absolutely love your goals. Goals tell you in which direction you want to go. They show you what you want to make next, for instance, and I put you here to make things. Striving, though...yikes, be careful of that one. Striving makes all the going very frantic and fraught. Settling is a lovelier way. Yes, just settle into all the going, then the going will be enough. After all, it has to be. There is only going; there is no arriving.

With love,

LOVE

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I recently attended a NEEDTOBREATHE concert with my family. Their lead singer, Bear Rinehart, took a moment to introduce one of their songs by saying, “Every time I get up here to perform, I wonder if I’ll be good enough. And every time I return home to my family, I wonder if they’ll still love me. What I’m saying is, no matter how healed you get in here,” he pointed to his heart, “those voices never go away. You need to learn how to live with them.”

An audible sigh went up from the crowd of twenty-thousand.

It was a sigh of relief, at the permission to stop striving-for and to start settling-in.

Unfreedom is being caught in the human condition; true freedom is becoming a companion to the human condition.

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We all want to be free of something, and we want to be free of it forever.

Sadness. Fear. Loss. Disappointment. Loneliness. Shame. Failure. Addiction. Fatigue. Regret. Responsibility. Limitations. Obligations. Pain. Illness. Death. And natural laws, like gravity and calories and time. Each of us has that one thing we believe is at the heart of our discontent. That hard thing that people on Easy Street don’t have to deal with.

What if freedom is finally accepting the truth that there is no Easy Street?

The lottery won’t make you happy once and for all. Romance won’t solve your problems. Sadness will ebb and flow. Fear will flare up. Shame will visit. You’ll screw up. Pain will come. Some days will be better than others, and there is no magic solution to any of it. As the poet Robert Frost said, “In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”

I used to think, freedom would be found in arriving. It isn't. Every arrival is just another departure, and the finish line, it turns out, is a fallacy. There’s nowhere to get to but here. And here. And here. And here…

These days, I think maybe freedom is not clinging to here even when it’s pleasurable, because then in the words of the great sage Bono, you're just stuck in a moment and you can’t get out of it. And maybe freedom is also not pushing here away when it’s something less than pleasurable, because anything you push away becomes your next prison.

Should we celebrate our moments of peacefulness and painlessness?Absolutely. Remember, though, as soon as you become hooked on them, you are no longer free.

Balls and chains can be made from any experience, including joy.

Life goes on.

And we are free to go with it.

Indeed, it’s the very best kind of freedom.

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