Freedom from Self

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: freedom is not of self, it is from self. The boundaries and borders by and through which we define and cultivate our selves are also and quite counter-intuitively the shackles and chains that bind us. It is something of a paradox – the more we seek freedom, the more we reflexively define and solidify the difference and distance by which we generate that self which aspires to freedom, the less freedom we can ever possess because we become bound by the self that seeks emancipation. The only solution to this and – yes – big-ticket existential crises such as war, pandemic, climate change and so on is not the cultivation of self but its constructive disassembly and dissipation. It is not that we need no self or subjective experience and individuality, it is that we require a substantively more open, adaptive and creative engagement with each other and a world which quite naturally seeks this creative entanglement and constructive resonance with us. Freedom from self, from memory, trauma and history is freedom for self. Please consider.