of commitment without actually making a commitment. It’s another sad form
of fake freedom. It’s empty calories for the soul.
I recently read about a guy who memorized moves from a chess program
to prove he could “master” chess in a month. He didn’t learn anything about
chess, didn’t engage with the strategy, develop a style, learn tactics. Nope, he
approached it like a gigantic homework assignment: memorize the moves,
win once against some highly ranked player, then declare mastery for
yourself.^15
This is not winning anything. This is merely the appearance of winning
something. It is the appearance of commitment and sacrifice without the
commitment and sacrifice. It is the appearance of meaning where there is
none.
Fake freedom puts us on the treadmill toward chasing more, whereas real
freedom is the conscious decision to live with less.
Fake freedom is addictive: no matter how much you have, you always feel
as though it’s not enough. Real freedom is repetitive, predictable, and
sometimes dull.
Fake freedom has diminishing returns: it requires greater and greater
amounts of energy to achieve the same joy and meaning. Real freedom has
increasing returns: it requires less and less energy to achieve the same joy and
meaning.
Fake freedom is seeing the world as an endless series of transactions and
bargains which you feel you’re winning. Real freedom is seeing the world
unconditionally, with the only victory being over your own desires.
Fake freedom requires the world to conform to your will. Real freedom
requires nothing of the world. It is only your will.
Ultimately, the overabundance of diversion and the fake freedom it
produces limits our ability to experience real freedom. The more options we
have, the more variety before us, the more difficult it becomes to choose,
sacrifice, and focus. And we are seeing this conundrum play out across our
culture today.
In 2000, the Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam published his seminal
book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.^16 In
it, he documents the decline of civic participation across the United States,
arguing that people are joining and participating less in groups, instead
preferring to do their activities alone, hence the title of the book: More people
bowl today than before, yet bowling leagues are going extinct. People are
bowling alone. Putnam wrote about the United States, but this not merely an