I’m Starting To Suspect This ‘Freedom’ Thing Came With Terms & Conditions

The 5th of May we celebrated ‘freedom’.

When you think about it, the concept of ‘freedom’ becomes strangely subjective and can be explained into many weird aspects.

Freedom sounds simple until you actually start thinking about it and then gets irri complicated the longer you crack your brain about it.

Although humanity did it’s best to turn the concept of freedom into something inspiring; if you’ll ask me (and of course you don’t, but I don’t mind) it became deeply confusing.

Fact is that somehow everyone looks extremely tired for a species that, for example, invented technology to make life easier.

What was meant to be another hyperbolic sarcastic observation about modern life somehow turned into a mildly concerning realization that maybe we’re all just aggressively improvising our way through systems nobody fully understands anymore.

Freedom TikTok video
YouTube Freedom video

To begin with: every baby should honestly be dropped onto a peaceful deserted island for at least a few years to figure out their own rules, personality, belief system and diaper situation before being introduced to a ridiculous civilization getting bombarded by people who force all their self-invented rules and beliefs on them.

Instead, within approximately twelve minutes of being born, those tiny drulers are already being prepared for schedules, expectations, systems, performance, rules, notifications, obligations and eventually passwords containing at least one capital letter, one symbol and a small emotional breakdown.

And for the new born screaming potatoes amongst us, this is what your life is going to look like in a nutshell:

When you wake up, we set 14 alarms, answer emails with one eye open, forget three passwords, pay seventeen invoices and continue participating in a society that somehow decided the ideal human experience is working until approximately the age of 147.

Because apparently the dream is to spend your best years stress-speedwalking through life so that one day, when your knees sound like microwave popcorn and your memory has quietly shrunk itself to the size of a micro-bit, you can finally enjoy your luxurious pension of €1.43 a month.

Assuming pensions still exist by then that is and weren’t just a tiny imaginary sausage used to keep everyone cooperative.

Meanwhile, humanity also invented the exciting tradition where complete strangers with important haircuts and over-designed nightmare evoking bow ties, argue with each other about whose imaginary authority is more important, things nobody fully understands but everyone is somehow extremely confident about and probably could have been solved with one awkward group chat and a sandwich and then casually announce:

Excellent news. YOU will now fight for us about it.

Nothing says freedom quite like unexpected participation.

And honestly, most of us are just blindly existing inside systems invented by other people who were probably in temporarily mental derangement or just confused and tired…or ate something weird.

Your freedom will also be:

Needing passwords for things that never needed passwords. App updates every six seconds. A refrigerator connecting to WiFi for reasons nobody fully understands.

Technology promising freedom but somehow created a reality where people chronically answer work messages while standing in supermarkets holding hummus and cucumbers.

That is IF they go to supermarkets instead of ordering it all online, so you never ever have to interact with real humans.

But now as I think of it, will be out of the question soon also because of invading robots

We’re all just trapped inside routines, notifications, deadlines and approximately 4,000 unread thoughts.

Explaining freedom further:

There are also countless mothers who would actually love to raise their own children themselves instead of speed-delivering them into an endless circus of schedules, drop-offs and exhausted survival logistics.

But apparently society looked at that idea and said:

Absolutely not. Please return to your workstation immediately.

Because nothing screams freedom quite like needing permission to spend time with your own child while everyone collectively pretends this is all completely normal and emotionally healthy.

And then there’s the completely normal situation where you are legally required to hand your child over to a school system every day while having surprisingly little control over what they actually learn there.

Especially highly gifted children, who are often expected to quietly slow themselves down, adapt, blend in and mentally sit through a reality that feels like running a Ferrari engine in permanent bicycle mode.

Which, unsurprisingly, can create approximately seventeen internal conflicts before lunchtime.

Back then in my days, freedom also looked like not being tracked, monitored, analyzed, optimized, notified, updated, reminded, verified, synchronized and psychologically wrestled into a dopamine loop by seventeen glowing rectangles before breakfast.

Nobody knew your location every four seconds. Algorithms weren’t secretly deciding your personality.

You weren’t glued to your Chat-GPT-button, because GPT knows everything better and no need to think anymore. (I’m not the one who says gpt knows everything better, because that isn’t so).

So instead of thinking you now have the entire freedom to do whatever is left to do in freedom without GPT or a fainting robot already has done it for you.

And children could actually play outside without half the neighborhood needing GPS confirmation, three safety apps and a live status report every twelve minutes.

Because nowadays safety is not anymore what it used to be back in the days.

People just… existed. Kids just played, mostly safely.

Which now sounds dangerously revolutionary.

Governments, systems, companies, apps, subscriptions, passwords, taxes, updates, rules, permits and approximately 46 unread emails all seem to collectively agree on one thing:

you will, in fact, be participating.

Because modern freedom sometimes feels less like complete independence and more like being allowed to choose which form you’d like to fill out first.

And somewhere along the way society also quietly introduced the fascinating concept that once you pass forty, you’re apparently expected to slowly fade into the background like an outdated software update nobody asked for.

Suddenly the internet starts talking to you as if you’re a historical artifact once carved emojis directly into cave walls and communicated exclusively through carrier pigeons and intense eye contact.

Meanwhile you’re still mentally seventeen, emotionally exhausted, technologically confused and just trying to remember why you walked into the kitchen in the first place.

But according to modern society, if a teenager thinks your jeans are wrong, complain about you forgetting your fillers today, puke over the beautiful silver strings wandering around your ears, who are witness of having it made it this far, your music is old and you use too many dots in text messages…

Congratulations.

You have officially become part of the decorative background of a free civilization.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this rambling blog; so I’ll stop here.