38 LAWS OF FREEDOM

Freedom is one of the most invoked and least examined values in modern life. We say we want it constantly. We invoke it in politics, in personal declarations, in the justification of almost every major choice we make. And yet most people, when asked to describe precisely what it would mean for them to be free, find the question surprisingly difficult to answer. That difficulty is the starting point of this book. Freedom is not a single thing. It is a cluster of different capacities, each requiring different kinds of work to develop. There is the freedom from obligation you did not choose. The freedom of genuine financial margin. The freedom of a mind that thinks for itself. The freedom of a self that can be alone without being lonely. The freedom of relationships in which you do not have to perform. All of these are distinct, and most people have more of some than others. The laws in this book are not rules handed down from any authority. They are observations drawn from human experience, from philosophy, from psychology, from history, and from the lived reality of what it takes for an ordinary person to build a genuinely free life in a world that is consistently organized against that goal.

Pages: 82, Paperback, Independently published