Freedom is More Than Nothing Left to Lose.
The Pleasure of Liberation
This weekend is a rare trifecta: Easter, Passover and Ramadan, plus, spring. It’s a moment of inflection around the world, particularly around the idea of liberation. Last night at our friend’s Seder table, we went around and answered the question, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how free are you?”
Before I tell you what number I chose, take a minute and come up with an answer for yourself.
10 would be a bold answer. Who is, after all, completely free? Well, dead people are. There is some amount of bondage that comes with just being alive in this human form. And, if we were all totally free, wouldn’t it be naked people copulating and nodding off on heroin? Who would make sure our toilets flushed and that our garbage was whisked away? Who would take care of the inconsolable child or clean up a crime scene?
So, I’m not a 10 and that’s okay. And 1 felt like too low of a bar. I mean, I’m not dodging bullets and rockets. I have a roof over my head and I know I will be eating leftovers for my next meal. I will walk out the door and decide to head to the beach or forest, church, synagogue, or dance floor. At the grocery store, I will choose from miles of shelves the exact flavor, size and brand of anything I want. I will buy an avocado that is perfectly ripe and one that will be ready to eat in a few days.
But is choice the same as freedom?
Sam Brown, who I interviewed recently, was locked behind bars for 24 years. He was told when to eat, when to shower and for how long he could go to the yard. A month after his release, having witnessed people glued to their phones and arguing over small things, he had some news for us all: liberation is an inside job. “There are more people in prison than there are behind bars,” he said.
This is a big part of the story of freedom for the Jews. After leaving slavery in Egypt, it would take another 40 years of wandering the desert and a change of generations before they could release the mental and emotional bonds.
I am free to make choices that my mother and grandmother couldn’t and yet I carry the ghost of their bonds in my body and psyche. I am acutely aware of the expectations that I will be a respectable mother, daughter, teacher, writer, leader, friend… the list goes on. There’s a lot at stake: respect, money, stability, and sometimes access to our children, family and the people we love. All of us, in some way, suppress our desires and ignore our internal compass to get in line with authority whether that be teachers, leaders, priests, gurus, parents, drugs, food, technology or the most influential of all: the prevailing wisdom of culture and group think.
Almost everyone at the table, including my daughters, clocked in at an 8. I felt the pull to say the same, to not be the outlier, to be liked and accepted. Another chain in my bondage. Nah, I thought, I’m not at an 8, not yet anyway.
I settled on a 6.
And then I laughed because it dawned on me I was free to choose what I believed about my own liberation. I want it to be a 6 because I want that much more ahead of me. I want to savor the unleashing of every last bit of social conditioning. I want to feel the pleasure that comes from breaking a chain and hearing it fall to the ground with a clang. I want to feel the exquisite freedom of my arms and legs moving with abandon as I shed expectation, judgment and fear.
I get to choose the story I tell myself about my own liberation and you do, too.
If you so desire, please tell: What number did you choose and why?
THE INSTITUTE FOR PLEASURE STUDIES
Relationships can offer us safety and security but true liberation comes when we support one another’s growth. That can be challenging because it can destabilize our sense of security and our sense of self. But here lies freedom. This is what Joe and I have found in our intimacy research and it is the basis for “Relationship Tripping” a six-week dive into communication, sex, play, and partnership. If you are in a committed relationship and you want to go deeper, join us for our intro: LOVE LAB 101 on April 26th and/or May 4th from 7-9 PM EST.
This is a gem of a documentary about a man who liberated himself from academia to study patterns and abstract mathematics with the jungle and dolphins as his teacher.