I’ve always been interested in what freedom actually means.
Nick Cave answered a question at his Red Hand Files a few weeks back on this, what it means for him now and it’s stuck with me.
He talked about how freedom for him is linked to the muscle of creativity and imagination and how it’s strengthened through resistance, discipline, and order. He talked about putting certain restrictions into place, forced labour, captivity.
Yes, forced labour. Captivity. And yet, this creates freedom. At first glance, it feels all wrong, doesn’t it? Stay with me.
When I was younger, I thought freedom meant no rules, no structure. Making plans felt like being told to colour inside the lines, and I couldn’t stand that. Chaos seemed cooler, more creative. I think we often romanticise that, especially when we’re young. And honestly, who am I to say it’s not true? My storm could be the light for someone else.
I do hear people with too much unstructured time struggle. They can’t find a place to settle, no purpose to hang their hat on. Fridays lose their shine. I’ve felt this, it’s like standing in a vast, open landscape with no landmarks, beautiful, but unsettling. Then there’s the flip side, I especially see it here in London, work can feel like a prison, locked in for 8 hours a day, giving up your space, and no amount of pay ever feels worth the time they take from you.
I think there’s a difference between space that’s just empty and space that’s empty with intention. One feels endless. The other? It’s like a blank canvas that’s waiting for something to happen. It’s the kind of space that feels alive with possibility, even when nothing can be happening in it, maybe that’s the capacity that he speaks of.
In my work, whether when facilitating, therapy, or coaching or come to think of it just life in general, I can see and feel what giving ourselves that intentional space does for us. Not filling it with busy or doing, but committing to it, turning up and letting it breathe. There’s a moment, when someone’s eyes light up, when they realise the space they’ve created for themselves is unlocking what they’ve been yearning for. That fills me up. It makes me feel alive.
So freedom for me isn’t the absence of structure. It’s does mean a balance between too much and too little, nothing is fixed hey.
I think most people haven’t got around to giving themselves that time…. yet. How would you feel if you did?
Freedom?
