We must set off down the winding path that leads to freedom. It begins on the periphery of social experience and insensibly takes us inwards, to the inner self. The French novelist Honoré de Balzac developed a highly original theory of description. It consisted in hovering around his characters, describing their town, their neighbourhood and then their homes, their bedrooms and finally focusing in on their clothes, their physical appearance, their hands, their eyes and the most minute details of their faces. This ‘circular description’ owes nothing to chance and is based upon an underlying philosophy: no matter whether we choose them or not, external details (our town, the way we arrange our bedrooms, the expression of our hands . . .) say something about us, about our inner being and psychology, and they inevitably shape us. They are part of the individual’s being and personality. A reflection upon freedom reveals something similar: it is by beginning with the periphery, with what determines us from outside, that we can best understand – and understand most deeply – the meaning of and preconditions for our inner freedom, in ourselves and for ourselves. Freedom, with its multiple dimensions and paradoxes, invites us to study it in circular fashion and then to close in on it so that we can make a better analysis of its conditions and potential manifestations . . . and, above all, to learn to distinguish between realities and illusions.
In Balzac’s philosophical and fantastic novel The Wild Ass’s Skin, the young Raphaël has a disturbing and revealing experience. Born into a ruined family that is crushed by the authority of a despotic father, he studies hard in the hope of winning his social freedom. Ambitious and eager to climb the ladder of success, he meets the wealthy Feodora – the ‘golden fairy’ (fée dorée) – who very quickly takes over his whole being. She represents both the upward mobility that determines him from on high and the love that now chains him down. It is a Faustian pact, and possession is never far away. Lost and destroyed, he is thinking of suicide when he meets an old antiques dealer who gives him a talisman and reveals the secret of life to him. The talisman – the skin of a wild ass – will allow him to gratify his every desire, but it will shrink in size whenever he expresses his desires. The power of his apparent freedom chains him and will lead him inexorably to death. The old antiques dealer whispers to him that the secret of freedom and happiness lies in self-control and in a marriage between knowledge, will, and power. We must choose, even and especially when we have to face up to what appears to be forced upon us: the objective conditions of life, our aspirations and even the impulses of our hearts. Raphaël’s fate raises the first major question about freedom: even before I know what I want, I must ask myself – from where I stand objectively – what I can do. Two hundred years later and on a very different continent, the same question runs through the family saga of the Buendias in Gabriel García Márquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. Six generations of lives, cyclical repetitions and the inevitable return of the same – which is always different. Living in solitude like Raphaël, Aureliano finally understands that the prophecy on Melquiades’ parchments has come true with him. He could only do what had to be.
The myth of the ‘noble savage’, like the stories of Hayy and Robinson, was meant to represent man outside all social determinations and to raise the first question: what could the individual do in such circumstances? There were already many determinations: the needs of the body, the instincts and desires, not to mention the limitations of the intellect and the understanding. Whilst Rousseau held that human beings were not necessarily destined to become social animals, the intuition of most philosophers and novelists was different: the only justification for the solitary experience of Hayy or Robinson was that it allowed an extrapolated study of what made them beings who were naturally and eminently social. The imaginary projections of an individual who is left in solitude with nature reveal the sum total of the conditions that are required to make him human. Over and beyond his ability to construct the edifice of truth on a rational basis, it is indeed a question of determining the a prioris of his humanity by establishing the sum of his needs and his abilities. As the antiques dealer suggests to Raphaël, we can certainly resolve to master our will by preserving a minimal degree of will power (and thus finding peace); but if it is matter of being inspired by a will that has no power, then we must learn to live in perpetual, and almost inhuman, suffering. That is what Buddhist teachings tell us when they codify the stages of our possible release from the cycles of suffering. And besides, we always want more than we can. The important thing is therefore to determine the conditions of our power in order to then ask questions about the source and essence of our will.
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From this perspective, we can see the inherent danger of the modern world view, which lays such emphasis on attainment of wealth – wealth being seen as liberation: with plenty of money, you can get anything you want. But of course such freedom is, as in Garcia’s novel, Faustian. Perhaps this is why major religions warn that it is far more difficult for the rich and powerful to find or achieve peace.
Another aspect of the prevalent world view is the supremacy of the individual. Communication becomes so often a fleeting and frivolous activity (advertisements, social media chatter, issues in the media – sensational today, forgotten tomorrow). It is as if we become permanent island castaways, but instead of projecting outwards in order to discover ourselves, we shrink inwards and fail to know even that individual self. Small wonder that marriage and friendship is also often fleeting, with no real giving to the other. Always on the move, always surrounded by millions of others, yet we are increasingly isolated, alone. Looking inward without seeing anything.
We withdraw into ourselves when performing our prayers, but with the aim of looking far beyond ourselves, to the One. In so doing we gain knowledge of the self and of the meaning of life, and thus attain profound peace. We have to keep returning to the hustle and bustle of ordinary life, but all these activities now have a purpose, and gradually the prayers and the other activities become part of an integral whole. Peace, balance, meaning in everything. What greater freedom is there than this?