The Greatest Freedom in Life is to Realize You Were Never Free.
From My Book “How To Cope with a Brutal World” (2024). Download the FULL Book at https://archive.org/details/how-to-cope-with-a-brutal-world-by-anubhav-srivastava
By Anubhav Srivastava
I was sitting in my balcony some time ago, just enjoying the view. I saw a pigeon sitting very quietly next to the balcony.
Because these days I have become a wannabe-philosopher, I started wondering, what is the point of existence of that particular pigeon sitting next to my balcony? The more I observed the more I realized that the pigeon appeared so quiet and contemplative, that perhaps it could be a pigeon philosopher itself.
With its eyes first staring deeply at the traffic, and then turning to look at me looking at it, perhaps the bird could have the same question about me, “Why does this weird chimpanzee staring at me, exist?”
If you go by the world’s current understanding of evolutionary biology, neither I nor the pigeon are that special (Sorry Pigeon philosopher bro).
Both of us only serve as a means to the end.
According to evolutionary biologists of our time, the body is a mere vessel for perpetuating the real “living thing” which wishes to spread itself- The Gene.
According to this understanding, which like most scientific understandings maybe updated in the future, our bodies are mere vessels or vehicles for the gene. They only exist to serve one purpose, to spread the gene and help it survive over millions of years, maybe more.
Just like if you have to go somewhere long, you may have to first take a cab, then a flight, then a train, and then maybe a cab again, the gene uses our bodies as vehicles to spread itself over millions of years, with the body being only a means to the end, but otherwise serving no value.
Once the gene leaves the vessel to hitch a ride on another vessel, it does not really care what happens to the previous self. It is “selfish.”
While this does not literally imply that a gene is consciously selfish, at a fundamental level, for the gene, the perpetuation of the species is important, the individual is not.
This is similar to how systems and social orders like organizations, kingdoms and countries are interested in their collective survival, even if it requires an individual’s sacrifice.
So, am I just a vessel? Are you just a vessel? Is the Pigeon Philosopher just a vessel? Or is there a real meaning to any of us having existed at all?
I often asked myself, even as a child, as to why I was really here? What was the purpose of me having existed at all? What was the reason behind me suddenly popping into existence out of nowhere, and was there a point of it?
Do I have a purpose of existing as an individual, or did I just pop out to serve my real master — The Gene?
In the 19th century, there lived a German Philosopher called Arthur Schopenhauer who I believe you should finally be introduced to, after all this “teasing” throughout the book.
Schopenhauer minced no words and stated that an individual’s existence was similar to that of a prisoner.
Schop didn’t waste time on pleasantries when it came to his philosophy. He looked at life and saw a brutal reality that many of us are too scared or too indoctrinated to acknowledge. Let’s cut to the chase: He argued that life is basically a prison. No sugar-coating, no silver linings — just a cold, hard slap of truth.
First off, he believed that we’re all trapped. None of us asked to be born. Here we are, though, thrown into existence without a choice, like convicts thrown into a cell. And once you’re here, there’s no easy way out. You’re stuck serving a life sentence until death comes knocking. It’s a bleak picture, isn’t it? But that’s exactly how Schopenhauer saw it.
He compared our daily grind to being stuck behind bars, limited by the boundaries of our own suffering and the fleeting nature of time itself. You can’t escape it; you can only endure it. We’re constantly hemmed in by the past and the uncertain future, trapped in a present that often feels too constrictive, too painful.
Schopenhauer’s take is that life is a zero-sum game. Everyone and everything is in a constant battle for survival, clawing their way over each other just to catch a fleeting moment of relief from the inevitable pain and decay. That’s not living; it’s just surviving. And according to him, this survival is driven by what he famously called the “will to live” — a primal, insatiable drive that keeps us clawing through existence, blind to the futility of it all.
Schopenhauer suggests that if we could just see life for the prison, it is, we might find a way to navigate it with less disappointment.
Instead of constantly seeking pleasure and running from pain, we should recognize that pain is the more common state in life. Pleasure is temporary, fleeting, and often not as satisfying as we expect.
In sum, Schopenhauer’s message is pretty hardcore: Life is like a prison where happiness is a brief visitor. We’re all inmates here — some of us are just in deeper denial than others.
At first, I thought this guy was being really negative and was a glass completely empty kind of dude. At one point of life, I would have called Schop a “whiner.” However now having seen life sufficiently, I can’t help but join him as a fellow whiner (Henceforth, I appoint him as my “buddy” Schop)
Over optimism has been a far bigger cause of misery for people rather than pessimism, because almost everyone has sufficient evidence of widespread suffering, but only a few have evidence of sustained, long-term pleasure in their lives.
Even the richest people leading the most pleasurable and hedonistic lifestyles, soon suffer as a result in terms of their physical and mental health. In the face of this fundamentally unignorable observation, being told that life is ALWAYS a beautiful and positive thing, is an insult to people’s intelligence and is like a slap in the face.
Perhaps coming to term with the realities of life will help people be more at peace.
You see, pain far outweighs any pleasure of life.
Don’t believe me? Just don’t eat or drink for two days and you will feel pain.
Stay outside in the heat in 50 degrees (Celsius) plus temperatures all day long with no respite and you will feel pain.
Stay outside in -20-degree temperatures all day long with no proper clothes on and you will feel pain.
Fall off even the first floor of a building and you will feel pain.
Have a bad fever and you will feel pain even in doing things you otherwise find great pleasure doing.
You can’t sustain intense pleasures for more than a few minutes (unless you are on narcotics that anyway lead to pain later), but you can suffer from extremely intense pain for days.
I will stop now otherwise you will call me overly morbid for obvious reasons but it’s clear the list goes on and on.
In fact, in the absence of pain killing medicines, it is only in fulfilment of certain criteria such as sufficient food, sufficient water, proper clothing, proper shade, reasonably functioning bodily functions etc, that a biological body feels no pain. Otherwise, even if a single one of these things goes out of balance, you will feel pain.
So how is life something inherently “positive”. It’s only positive if you’re an ignorant but lucky person in terms of health, relationship and finances etc. who fails to acknowledge his luck, so that then you can relax in your cushy chair and AC room and call others negative.
Don’t misunderstand the point of my observation. My point is to not make you depressed, but rather to help you open your eyes and rethink the judgement you pass on others at every stage (thanks to super positive thinkers brainwashing you to believe everyone deserves what they get and that man completely controls his own destiny)
Well last I checked, those super positive thinkers can’t even control when and where they are born, what kind of parents they had, what kind of talents they are born with, or their own levels of stupidity, so what makes them think they can completely control their own destiny?? Oh… their stupidity, that they can’t control… right….
A side effect of over-optimism is that such people usually believe the world is completely meritorious and firmly believe everyone ends up where they deserve to be. They can never see their own good luck or others’ bad luck.
On the other hand, only those who are willing to open their eyes to the harsh realities and widespread sufferings of life are the ones who can feel compassion for someone else’s suffering.
Now, I want you to Get ready for a ride, because I am about to depress you even more than Schop.
Schopenhauer intrigued us with a now famous philosophical musing, “Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills,”
I agree with the second part of the statement, but frankly, he’s missing the full picture with the first part as well.
Except for a very finite areas in life where we have considerable control, anything that is dependent on factors other than your own will (your genetics or the decisions of others or the macroeconomic environment of your country or what family you were born in, or whether you get an exponential return on your effort) is extremely hard to pull off and many times is a matter of pure luck.
First off, consider physical limitations. Say your will is all fired up to run a marathon, but your legs are paralyzed. Where’s your vaunted free will then? It’s tethered by the hard realities of your body.
Consider you gaining the information you have from this book.
You would not be able to read it if you didn’t have eyes (or have hearing loss if you are listening to an audiobook)
You would not be able to read it had you not received basic education on language and communication as a child.
You would not be able to read it had I not written it.
You would not be able to read it, had you not heard about the book from somewhere.
Did you “WILL” any of these things? They were out of your control.
Now let’s move further what if a brain injury has left you unable to move, speak, or think clearly? Suddenly, the grand idea of willing anything crumbles to dust.
Where’s your ability to do what you will then? It’s utterly compromised, reduced to wishful thinking, because your brain — the command center for all willing and doing — is out of commission. And this isn’t just about extreme cases. One may argue that these super positive thinkers got a brain injury as well.
It highlights a fundamental flaw in the notion that our will operates independently of our physical and mental state. It’s a reminder that the so-called “free will” is profoundly dependent on our neurological health. You can’t even enjoy the illusion of making a “conscious choice” if your brain isn’t functioning properly.
Moreover, consider the everyday influences of other people’s decisions, societal norms, and random life events. You can will to become a leader, an innovator, or a partner to someone, but these aren’t solely in your hands. Others have their wills, their plans, and most of the times, they just don’t align with yours.
If we’re truly honest with ourselves, Schopenhauer’s statement should read: “Man can neither will what he wills, nor do what he wills without the permission of his own body and the world around him.”
See, I one upped even Schop! Now, now where’s my Nobel?
Anyway, there are many motivational bros (I used to be one myself but I dissociate myself from the movement!) who greatly corrupted minds with their nonsense. They inspired thousands of similar disciples as well as pseudoscientific movies on the Laws of Attraction that give you the illusion you can control anything in the universe. Sorry to burst your bubble, but that’s not quite true.
We humans are really funny creatures who like to think of ourselves are incredibly special and important. We talk about wanting to make a “dent in the universe” and by that we mean we want to achieve something big in our careers that makes a significant difference in the fabrics of spacetime. Of course, we conveniently forget that to really make a dent in the universe, one would have to, at the very least, destroy a few million galaxies.
Whether you can ‘Carve Your Destiny’ or not is debatable, but one thing is certain: your destiny surely ends up carving you. So-called positive thinkers will dismiss this as negative or fatalistic. On the contrary, this realization hasn’t made me any less responsible at all, but it has made me far more humble.
And it is this very realization that has also brought me peace of mind, compassion for others, and freedom from society’s imposed pressures — allowing me to finally experience life as an experience worth living, rather than a battle one must die fighting.
Let me narrate a story from the Upanishads. The Upanishads are ancient Vedic scriptures that delve into the nature of reality.
There once was a time when the mighty demi-gods, had triumphed in a great battle. They stood victorious, basking in the glory of their conquest. The air was thick with their pride as they reveled in their strength, their powers, and the victory they believed was solely theirs. “This victory is ours!” they proclaimed, “This triumph is our doing!”
But unknown to them, their victory had not been their own. It was Brahman, the Ultimate Cosmic Power, the source of all energy and life in the universe, who had silently guided their hands, who had subtly orchestrated their success. Yet, the demi-gods were blind to this truth. They had allowed their pride to cloud their vision, to fill their hearts with the illusion of self-sufficiency.
Sensing their arrogance, Brahman decided to reveal a profound truth to them — a lesson that would shatter their illusions and show them the true nature of their power.
Brahman appeared before them, not in a grand display of light and thunder, but as a mysterious, inexplicable presence — a wonder that the demi-gods could not comprehend. This was something they had never encountered before, something beyond their understanding. Perplexed, they turned to Agni, the god of fire, who was also known as Jātavedas, the one who consumes everything.
“Agni,” they said, “go forth and discover what this wonder is.”
With confidence, Agni approached the mysterious presence. As he drew near, a voice emerged from the presence, a voice that seemed to resonate with the very fabric of the universe.
“Who are you?” the voice asked.
“I am Agni,” he replied, his voice full of pride. “I am Jātavedas.”
“And what power do you possess?” the voice inquired.
“I have the power to burn anything and everything that exists on this earth,” Agni declared, his flames crackling with fierce energy.
The voice was silent for a moment, and then it laid a simple blade of grass before Agni. “Burn this,” it commanded.
Agni, the mighty god of fire, summoned all his strength. He unleashed his flames, a roaring inferno that could reduce mountains to ash. But to his shock and disbelief, the blade of grass remained unscathed. No matter how fiercely he burned, the grass stood untouched, as if mocking his efforts. Defeated, Agni returned to the other demi-gods, his pride shattered. “I could not burn it,” he confessed. “I could not discover what this wonder is.”
Undeterred, the demi-gods turned to Vāyu, the god of wind, also known as Mātariśvan, the life-breath of the universe. “Vāyu,” they said, “go forth and discover what this wonder is.”
With the confidence of one who could sweep away entire worlds, Vāyu approached the mysterious presence. As he drew near, the same voice asked him, “Who are you?”
“I am Vāyu,” he answered, “I am Mātariśvan.”
“And what power do you possess?” the voice inquired.
“I can carry away anything and everything that exists on this earth,” Vāyu declared, the winds swirling around him in a powerful vortex.
Once again, the voice laid down the blade of grass before him. “Carry this away,” it commanded.
Vāyu, the mighty god of wind, summoned all his force. He unleashed gales that could topple forests and churn the oceans. But to his astonishment, the blade of grass did not budge. No matter how fiercely he blew, the grass remained rooted, unmoved by his power. Humiliated, Vāyu returned to the other demi-gods, his pride in tatters. “I could not carry it away,” he admitted. “I could not discover what this wonder is.”
Finally one of the “gods” was able to recognize Brahman for what it truly was and all the gods realized their follies. They were left in stunned silence, their confidence shattered. These beings, who had once thought themselves invincible, now realized that their powers were not their own. They understood that without Brahman, the source of all energy, they were nothing.
The important thing to understand from this story is there are cosmic forces controlling our lives that our human minds cannot always comprehend or transcend, even though we repeatedly have the illusion of the same.
The greatest freedom is to finally come to terms with how little freedom we have.
This is not “Fatalistic”, on the contrary, this is about realizing that you neither deserve complete blame nor unnecessary praise for how your life eventually turns out
There is something profoundly liberating about knowing man is not completely liberated from the forces of nature.
“Your “slaves” are actually fellow slaves, if you keep in mind that fortune has its way with you just as much as with them.”– Roman Philosopher Seneca to his friend Lucilius on the topic of “slaves.”
“One who knows that adversity and success come and go in obedience to destiny becomes content. He neither desires nor grieves.
One who knows that birth and death, happiness and misery, come and go in obedience to destiny sees nothing to accomplish, and in action remains unattached.
One who has realized that only by caring is misery caused in the world becomes free, happy, serene, desireless.”
– ASHTAVAKRA GITA
