What Real Freedom Is
PHILOSOPHER: Earlier, you acknowledged that you do not want to be disliked by anyone, and said, “There’s no one anywhere who’d go so far as to actually want to be disliked.”
YOUTH: Right.
PHILOSOPHER: Well, I’m the same way. I have no desire to be disliked by other people. I would say that “No one would go so far as to actually want to be disliked” is a sharp insight.
YOUTH: It’s a universal desire!
PHILOSOPHER: Even so, regardless of our eorts, there are people who dislike me and people who dislike you. This, too, is a fact. When you are disliked, or feel that you are being disliked, by someone, what state of mind does it put you in?
YOUTH: Very distressed, to put it simply. I wonder why I’ve come to be disliked, and what I did or said that might have been oensive. I think I should have interacted with the person in a dierent way, and I just brood and brood over it and am ridden with guilt.
PHILOSOPHER: Not wanting to be disliked by other people. To human beings, this is an entirely natural desire, and an impulse. Kant, the giant of modern philosophy, called this desire “inclination.”
YOUTH: Inclination?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, it is one’s instinctive desires, one’s impulsive desires. Now, if one were to say that living like a stone tumbling downhill and allowing such inclinations or desires or impulses to take one wherever they will is “freedom,” one would be incorrect. To live in such a way is only to be a slave to one’s desires and impulses. Real freedom is an attitude akin to pushing up one’s tumbling self from below.
YOUTH: Pushing oneself up from below?
PHILOSOPHER: A stone is powerless. Once it has begun to roll downhill, it will continue to roll until released from the natural laws of gravity and inertia. But we are not stones. We are beings who are capable of resisting inclination. We can stop our tumbling selves and climb uphill. The desire for recognition is probably a natural desire. So are you going to keep rolling downhill in order to receive recognition from others? Are you going to wear yourself down like a rolling stone, until everything is smoothed away? When all that is left is a little round ball, would that be “the real I”? It cannot be.
YOUTH: Are you saying that resisting one’s instincts and impulses is freedom?
PHILOSOPHER: As I have stated repeatedly, in Adlerian psychology, we think that all problems are interpersonal relationship problems. In other words, we seek release from interpersonal relationships. We seek to be free from interpersonal relationships. However, it is absolutely impossible to live all alone in the universe. In light of what we have discussed until now, the conclusion we reach regarding “What is freedom?” should be clear.
YOUTH: What is it?
PHILOSOPHER: In short, that “freedom is being disliked by other people.”
YOUTH: Huh? What was that?
PHILOSOPHER: It’s that you are disliked by someone. It is proof that you are exercising your freedom and living in freedom, and a sign that you are living in
accordance with your own principles.
YOUTH: But, but…
PHILOSOPHER: It is certainly distressful to be disliked. If possible, one would like to live without being disliked by anyone. One wants to satisfy one’s desire for recognition. But conducting oneself in such a way as to not be disliked by anyone is an extremely unfree way of living, and is also impossible. There is a cost incurred when one wants to exercise one’s freedom. And the cost of freedom in interpersonal relationships is that one is disliked by other people.
YOUTH: No! That’s totally wrong. There is no way that could be called freedom.
That’s a diabolical way of thinking to coax one into evildoing.
PHILOSOPHER: You’ve probably been thinking of freedom as “release from organizations.” That breaking away from your home or school, your company or your nation is freedom. However, if you were to break away from your organization, for instance, you would not be able to gain real freedom. Unless one is unconcerned by other people’s judgments, has no fear of being disliked by other people, and pays the cost that one might never be recognized, one will never be able to follow through in one’s own way of living. That is to say, one will not be able to be free.
YOUTH: Be disliked by other people—is that what you are saying?
PHILOSOPHER: What I am saying is, don’t be afraid of being disliked.
YOUTH: But that’s—
PHILOSOPHER: I am not telling you to go so far as to live in such a way that you will be disliked, and I am not saying engage in wrongdoing. Please do not misunderstand that.
YOUTH: No. Then let’s change the question. Can people actually endure the weight of freedom? Are people that strong? To not care even if one is disliked by
one’s own parents—can one become so self-righteously deant?
PHILOSOPHER: One neither prepares to be self-righteous nor becomes deant.
One just separates tasks. There may be a person who does not think well of you, but that is not your task. And again, thinking things like He should like me or I’ve done all this, so it’s strange that he doesn’t like me, is the reward-oriented way of thinking of having intervened in another person’s tasks. One moves forward without fearing the possibility of being disliked. One does not live as if one were rolling downhill, but instead climbs the slope that lies ahead. That is freedom for a human being. Suppose that I had two choices in front of me—a life in which all people like me, and a life in which there are people who dislike me—and I was told to choose one. I would choose the latter without a second thought. Before being concerned with what others think of me, I want to follow through with my own being. That is to say, I want to live in freedom.
YOUTH: Are you free, now?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. I am free.
YOUTH: You do not want to be disliked, but you don’t mind if you are?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, that’s right. Not wanting to be disliked is probably my task, but whether or not so-and-so dislikes me is the other person’s task. Even if there is a person who doesn’t think well of me, I cannot intervene in that. To borrow from the proverb I mentioned earlier, naturally one would make the eort to lead someone to water, but whether he drinks or not is that person’s task.
YOUTH: That’s some conclusion.
PHILOSOPHER: The courage to be happy also includes the courage to be disliked.
When you have gained that courage, your interpersonal relationships will all at once change into things of lightness.
