Exploring Freedom & Balance
Bankless DAO Writer’s cohort week 1, an exploration of freedom, balance and the relentless fight that brings us here.
For the audio version of the article, you can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcast, iHeart Radio or Amazon Music.
So that we are on the same page, let’s start first by defining the concepts; we will begin with the traditional dictionary route using Merriam-Webster as our source:
freedom (noun): the quality or state of being free, such as the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action; liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another: Independence; the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous
balance (noun): equipoise between contrasting, opposing, or interacting elements
Freedom boils down to the ability to make choices without limits, to have the power to make the decisions that best align with you, the person. Balance on the other hand, is equilibrium. Bear in mind that these two are not mutually exclusive, that is they can in fact both exist on one instance, they are however often separate, isolated from each other because, well, because these days its hard to have both.
When thinking on this, I wondered (and continue to wonder) through the age old question, why does this imbalance of freedom exist, and what then is the point of humanity if we are so focused on perpetuating this lack of balance. Now look, I am by not means idealistic, I understand that balance is the mission of life, and that pure balance requires work, dedication and very deliberate actions, which take a lot more time and effort than anything else. I understand that this is how life has been for the longest time, but again my question persists, why?
I saw a post on Instagram the other day of a lady who had spent 4 days in a dark room at a specialised resort, on the 4th day, she left the room blindfolded and with the assistance of the resort team, captured the moment she took off the blindfold on camera. She was overwhelmed with a plethora of emotions, so she cried. The comments were on fire, the people were livid! Some even admitted that ‘this video makes me angry and I have no idea why’, another said ‘imagine sharing this with a blind person’. The issue it seemed, is that she had 4 days to spend supposedly doing nothing, while others worked to the bone to keep the lights on and their bread buttered, the other issue, is she was only visually impaired for 4 days, while others go through a lifetime of it. It is dreadful to experience any kind of lack, struggling for what may be the barest minimum for some. Needless to say, I can understand this seemingly irrational anger, the disdain and unhappiness one may feel when another gets to have the necessities that you can only dream about. For lack of a better word, that feeling sucks, big time, and it is far from freeing.
As a Bankless enthusiast, I am of the mind that we all want to be free, free of restrictions, free to spend, free to keep, to invest, and to generate ideas & wealth without being pushed into a corner. I would like to believe that we understand that all this needs to come in a balance, that for the truest kind of freedom, it must come to all and not just the few. But who am I kidding, this hasn’t happened in eons — if ever; many of us live a separate life far from the Bankless Utopia, but there is hope.
The metaphors often juxtapose freedom with birds flying, with luxury villas and richly extravagant habits, but what if I were to say freedom is the ability to let go of the desperation, what if I were to say the freedom that will eventually come from the relentless desire for being bankless is one that could change the entire game in the simplest of ways? Being able to grow, learn & discover unhindered, unbridled. The journey should continue to be never ending, relentless in it’s passion.
So, to my favourite band of human beings, the faithful, the graceful, the tragic and the classic, remember that the doubter’s doubts never made it untrue. Remember the freedom we seek, remember that freedom itself can be expensive, costing everything from money to time, and even life itself, yet here you are, forging through to the very top.
