Freedom in living beyond the illusion of control

Grasping at control is nothing new in the human experience. However, in a culture infused with unhelpful ideas and composed of isolated individualists, grasping at control has been taken to new heights.

One of the silliest things we try to convince each other of in postmodern idiocy is that freedom is the same as the ability to do whatever you want whenever you want. Experience will demonstrate that enacting every whim that crosses your path is a surefire way to be miserable. To the child forbidden junk food with puritanical obsession, a full-size bag of salt and vinegar potato chips seems like a wonderful indulgence. What that same child will find upon consuming even half the bag is that his mouth is burned with chemicals and his tastebuds deadened for days to come.

So too, lounging motionless on the couch while bad television streams flickering images across your retinas may sound like a wonderful reward after a long week. Several hours of such inactivity produces a dull stupor instead of rejuvenation.

No, it is not in following every whim that brings freedom. In reaction to this basic fact, many people mistakenly believe the path to a good life is then control. A business owner may tell you earnestly that people experience less stress to the degree they have control. For that reason, he has started a business in order to have a maximal degree of control over his life. Is it primarily control that brings him the peace of freedom?

People shy away from even modest challenge because it will introduce forces that they cannot control, but this is a mistake. Consider the business owner: he does not have control over every aspect of the products and services his business provides, the customers and their reactions, the external factors affecting business, and so much more. What he has chosen to have control over is the set of challenges he takes on, channeling his agency into something that will likely bear fruit, and, if it does not, will likely render him a better man. We can learn much from such people.

Married couples who “don’t want children” might be afraid on some level of the uncontrollable noise and chaos that children necessarily bring. Perhaps even more common than the people who say they “don’t want” things that they can’t control are those who say they “could never.” If one were to write some musings on the subject of homeschooling, countless earnest mothers will feel obligated to explain, “I could never homeschool”; “I could never have more than two kids”; “If I had to spend all day with my kids I would kill them.” These are, remarkably, the comments of college-educated, professionally successful people who don’t want to lose control.

There is no mandate that one must accept every challenge life offers, but if one is going to live within the confines of what one can control, one’s life will be very small and, in the end, illusory.

Illusory because we do not actually have control. Blinded by scientism and materialism, we think we are capable of creating life when in fact we have no power to make the rain fall, let alone determine our own existence.

In the extreme, the desire to control results in self-annihilation. When we can no longer maintain the illusion of control, the only path left to us is in despair and panic to take our own life. Yet, it was never ours to take because we all know we are partaking of a miracle that we did not create. We can never quite escape the question of why there is something instead of nothing. Why are we here at all?

As many data points as we identify, there are some things we just can’t know. The “whys” allude us. The paraphrase of Plato’s Socrates proclaiming, “All I know is that I do not know,” about sums up the state of our knowledge and control of existence. It’s easy to think, “That’s cute, but, of course, Socrates knew he was brilliant.” But perhaps it’s more helpful to take the idea seriously. What do we not know? Can we become comfortable with that lack of knowledge?

Bringing a interesting blend of stoicism into the 21^st century, podcasting megastar Joe Rogan said, “One of the most fascinating lessons I’ve absorbed about life is that the struggle is good.” Surrendering control does not come easily or naturally, but the struggle is good.