Chapmanesque—Freedom is Outside the Box
When summer hits, I can anticipate a drop off of energy for a few days followed by a wild rush of “get-to-it-ness” once I’ve made it out of the exhausted forest.
Needless to say, the introduction of the summer of 2026 allowed me to traverse through that familiar trail.
During some personal reflection over the previous school year and an infusion of a few circumstances where friends of mine and friends of my family have experienced traumatic loss, I couldn’t help but settle on a word that I’ve come to believe is used incorrectly, often cheapened as well as exploited.
That word is freedom.
What is Freedom?
According to Merriam-Webster, freedom is the power or condition of acting without compulsion. Also, the word “has a broad range of application from total absence of restraint to merely a sense of not being unduly hampered or frustrated.”
I like that last part—noting being “frustrated.” That’s another word I think we act upon incorrectly, but that’s another entry for another day.
MW has two other words associated with freedom: liberty and license.
I’d like to take a moment to hopefully express where my reflections, my meditations and my revelations placed me, all without any reference to anything political.
(Good luck, right?).
All About the Bear
As I’m sure you’ve heard before, there’s an old saying that talks about outrunning bears. You probably know it well.
“You don’t have to outrun the bear. You just have to outrun someone else.”
Tale as old as time. It’s a notion that’s founded in a dichotomy.
To have winners, you must have losers.
To survive the bear, you have to have one that doesn’t make it.
If I’ve got the clearer path and the other person has hindrances in his way, the odds are in my favor that I get to out run the bear.
You see, inside this referenced world is where we find how we tend to treat freedom.
We treat the idea of freedom seemingly as a notion of haves and have nots.
I may “get to” do this, whereas you “don’t get to” do that. We base our relationship with how free we are compared to those around us.
Comparison, as it’s said, is the thief of joy. In a world where freedom is measured on the market share of what’s allowed and what’s not, the standard of freedom shifts.
The freedom warranted all depends on who has and who has not.
Under this idea, there’s no such thing as freedom; there’s only advantage and privilege.
Both advantage and privilege depend on the positioning of others. We’re corralled in the ring, forced to jockey for positions that set us in a more advantageous seat than those around us.
Inside this box, our freedoms are defined for us, prescribed for us. We are forced to flock to what public opinion says is desirable and preferable.
I’d venture to say that in the case above, we’re not free. We simply may happen to find ourselves in a more favorable position.
Here, we mistake freedom for advantage.
Privileged or Disadvantaged: Two Sides, Same Coin
I recently saw some online chatter that the trend known as “Stomp-Clap-Hey” music is now viewed by young trend-setters as cringe (their word, not mine).
This genre took the 2010s by storm, sparking the neo-hipster movement. Acoustic guitars, bass drums, tight jeans and boots. If this sounds familiar, the world saw something similar 30 years before.
Just as the ‘90s gave the ‘80s hipster phase a swift kick in the rear with a pair of Timberlands and baggy jeans, the 2020s are doing the same thing to the “Stomp-Clap-Hey” world.
They’ve been talking about it in The New Yorker, NBC News and even Medium.
Remember that hipster movement and how everyone seemingly was swept up by the music Mumford & Sons would play? Now, the next decade wants to hate on it?
The standard of what is not only acceptable but cool is ever changing. You see, a new target became visible for the bear.
That cutting-edge thing that seemingly has pop-culture in a stranglehold will soon realize how hard it is to hold on to that spot, how fickle popularity really is.
Whether we’re the proverbial winners or the losers, the judgments we’re subject to are really the shackles that keep us chained inside the box.
That’s not freedom. That’s something different entirely. That’s two sides of the same coin.
Freedom is Outside the Box
To truly transcend into freedom, we have to change our standard from something with an ever-shifting foundation to something that goes beyond the ins and outs of social mores.
For some, this “outside standard” belongs to a religious designation. For others, it’s an inner-peace or transcendental reconning.
Part of this freedom comes with an understanding that others aren’t going to “get” you. No, let me type that in another way.
Part of this freedom comes with a willingness to shed the need for others to “get” you. (I like that phrasing better).
You end up shedding the obsessions and tally-keeping of the other side. I’ve watched the past two decades as people pore over the politics, the words and the actions of men and women they claim to abhor.
They’re letting those they despise live, I believe phrase is, “rent free” in their heads and in their hearts.
That’s not freedom. That’s imprisonment. That’s obsession.
I do not believe achieving this freedom is easy, nor is it achieved quickly. It takes courage to venture through the forests of other people’s opinions where you eventually realize that Ain’t nobody gotta like you.
It takes restructuring your life and habit changes, but it can be achieved.
True freedom is not something given to some by other subjected beings. It’s not something earned based on bylaws or constitutions.
Freedom is being subject to something beyond the score-keeping world we’re stuck in. Once we let go of the wins and losses that keep us inside the box, we’re able to experience the euphoria of real freedom.
Then, we’re free to treat others with real respect, able to cheer on strangers as if they were close loved ones, and willing to expect the best out of people.
All it takes is a willingness to try.
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