Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.
John Lewis, Across That Bridge
Introduction
Lately, I (Dave) have been reflecting on freedom and also feeling a lot of doom in the country and the world. I realized that the word, “freedom,” actually has part of the word “doom” within it. Is there a relationship between freedom and doom? What about free doom—doom being freely given? Freedom is always related to something that is unfreedom—a striving to overcome some doom, whether within oneself, within relationship, or within a society. Freedom needs a reference point—in our discussion we will use the term “doom” as the reference point for unfreedom.
This essay grows out of the June 28, 2025 Becoming a True Human podcast, episode 11 “Freedom or Free Doom.” We will explore various forms of freedom and unfreedom as they manifest in health and illness, personal growth, and in democracy and its opposites. While I started with a dichotomy of opposites, Chris shifted the perspective to freedom being in a dynamic dance with doom, authenticity, and hope. We will alternate each section from either Dave’s or Chris’ perspective.
Freedom and Doom: Philosophical Foundations
I (Dave) am a psychiatrist and author. When I come across a problem, I generally turn to reading books on the topic. Lately, I’ve been reading Timothy Snyder’s On Freedom, Eric Fromm’s Escape from Freedom, and Delogu’s Fascism, Vulnerability, and the Escape from Freedom: Readings to Repair Democracy. These books cast freedom as a recurring psychological and social challenge.
We can speak of freedom as well as of its opposite: unfreedom—or doom. Fromm, a German sociologist and psychoanalyst who fled from Nazi Germany to the United States in 1934, makes the distinction between negative freedom (“freedom from”) and positive freedom (“freedom to”) (Fromm, Escape From Freedom, 31-34). Fromm saw freedom as a psychosocial developmental stage that we, as individuals and society, are still negotiating. Writing in 1941, Fromm saw that many 20th century peoples were struggling to grow into positive freedom—freedom to—and this had consequences for democracy. His theory was that the fear of freedom could lead to a regressive retreat for individuals and societies to give their freedom to an authoritarian regime, such as was happening in Germany at the time. Here is how Fromm summarizes his work (in the gendered language of 1941):
It has been the thesis of this book that freedom has a twofold meaning for modern man: that he has been freed from traditional authorities and has become an “individual,” but that at the same time he has become isolated, powerless, and an instrument of purposes outside of himself, alienated from himself and others; furthermore, that this state undermines his self, weakens and frightens him, and makes him ready for submission to a new kind of bondage. Positive freedom on the other hand is identical with the full realization of the individual’s potentialities, together with his ability to live actively and spontaneously (Fromm, 268).
Positive freedom is, thus for Fromm, an interaction of individual growth and socio-political manifestation. In this sense, we are all responsible for creating freedom in the world—freedom for ourselves and freedom for others. The implication is, also, that freedom is something that everyone must have, otherwise no one is free. Prisons and walls of the mind create prisons and walls in society—and vice versa. Fromm continues:
The cultural and political crisis of our day is not due to the fact that there is too much individualism but that what we believe to be individualism has become an empty shell. The victory of freedom is possible only if democracy develops into a society in which the individual, his growth and happiness, is the aim and purpose of culture…in which the individual is not subordinated to or manipulated by any power outside of himself, be it the State of the economic machine; finally, a society in which his conscience and ideals are not the internalization of external demands, but are really his and express the aims that result in the particularly of his self (Fromm, 269).
Chris pointed out that this was a very individualistic perspective and that perhaps there were other views of freedom that were more collectivist and relational. What would a non-Western, non-individualistic perspective of freedom consist of?
Another perspective is that of Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow), who is enrolled with the Southern Ute Tribe, grew up at Picuris Pueblo, and is an artist, visionary, and healer. I have worked with Joseph over the past twelve years, and we have published four books and many essays together, including in About Place.
Rather than growing the individual ego, Joseph sees the goal of the healer as becoming a “hollow bone” where healing comes through the healer rather than from the healer. In this sense the individual ego is de-emphasized. We could say that the job of the ego is not to become a concrete, individual “thing,” but rather to become an open place where healing, democracy, and freedom continually manifests.
Joseph doesn’t separate the sound of a letter or word from its deeper meaning. He practices a kind of sound mysticism, building up the inner meaning of words by studying their component sounds/vibrations. We can use the letter/meaning key (Rael, Being & Vibration, 105, 120-121) he has developed to elucidate the sound meanings of the word “freedom.”
F – faith
R – abundance
E – placement/relationship
E – placement/relationship
D – touch
O – innocence
M – manifestation
Joseph would then put the word/sound/meaning into a sentence, such as “Freedom is having the faith that there will be abundance in our inner relationship and our outer relationships, but only when we touch our innocence (original nature) will freedom be becoming manifest.”
When I asked Joseph what about the word/sound/meaning of “doom,” he quickly said, “It means to begin again.” This way of understanding “doom” is less apocalyptic and more about freedom needing to be recreated. In this sense, we are always learning how to create True Freedom and beginning again. Freedom is a work in progress—not something done in the past by the “Founders” of the United States. Joseph and his family know all too well that the freedom of the American revolution brought doom to the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island/North America, as well as doom to the Africans who were enslaved and brought from their homes into the “New World.”
Personal Reflections: The Body as Freedom’s Frontier
When I (Chris), a meditation teacher, author, and grandfather, think about freedom and doom, I only have to go as far as my body, in particular, my colon. For the past 20 years, I’ve lived with ulcerative colitis. This chronic disease has taught me freedom and doom often live side by side—sometimes even in the same trip to the bathroom.
Chronic illness reminds me daily, sometimes hourly, that freedom is not merely liberation from constraint. Rather, it’s always in relationship with doom—and within this tension lies the possibility of agency, authenticity, creativity, and hope.
One insight from this illness came after months of an ulcerative colitis flare. That is, the part of the body I thought was trying to kill (doom) me was also doing everything it could to keep me alive. While the large intestine was inflamed, cramping and causing me to run to the bathroom multiple times during the day and night, it was also signaling to my brain important messages regarding what to eat, what not to eat, when to rest, when to ask for help.
This insight humbled me. It shifted my relationship with ulcerative colitis. In that moment, I felt a tenderness toward my body that I didn’t previously experience. My large intestine was no longer the enemy. It was really an ally. I felt more aligned with my body. I was no longer at odds with it. There was more ease—even a thread of forgiveness.
This shift in my relationship with ulcerative colitis provided a more generous perspective. In the past, freedom, on a good day, might be a day without multiple trips to the bathroom or severe nausea. Doom could show up as bleeding or the types of cramps that brought tears to my eyes. Now, even during difficult moments, I know the cramps will not go on forever and the bleeding will someday stop.
Freedom is not absent—even during periods of pain and suffering. It was present. Experiencing a different relationship provided more freedom with how I choose to respond to the suffering and pain. It is no longer one or the other—freedom or doom. Rather, both are present—freedom and doom. Together each exchanging leads in this mysterious dance.
My role shifted from reacting and attempting to control the body’s messages to listening deeply to them. Instead of reaching for freedom as the only alternative, my approach expanded to embrace both freedom and doom. The body does what the body does. The colon does what the colon does. I cannot control them. However, I can control my response to the colon and the body. It becomes a matter of listening deeply, of accepting both and observing their particular dance. And, in the process of familiarizing myself with them, I can respond with acceptance, flexibility, and consider appropriate responses. This gives rise to agency and hope.
Freedom and doom dance together in the body and my colon every day. And maybe that’s true for all of us, whether it’s our bodies or our politics. Agency and hope do not emerge when we deny doom or see freedom as the only way.
Freedom and doom are partners in the great dance of living. Hope and agency come from learning their steps—knowing when to yield, when to lead, and when to simply feel their rhythm move through you. In the end, this dance becomes not a battle but a learned choreography in the art of becoming a true human being.
However, what happens when this choreography of freedom is interrupted and influenced by societal forces? Sociocultural forces can redefine freedom.
Historical, Psychological, and Personal Perspectives on Freedom
Fromm saw capitalism and industrialization expanding individual freedoms while introducing alienation and inauthentic freedoms (consumerism). He believed freedom was not simply the ability to participate in consumer society but involved inner growth along with outer choices.
How is it that we make important decisions in our lives and create the possibility of freedom?
In my own life, I (Dave) remember a time of crisis. I went to college with the idea of becoming an astronautical/aeronautical engineer and designing spacecraft for NASA. Many of my family and my school counselor thought that engineering was the ideal career for me. However, math was always my weakest subject and after failing calculus and ending up on academic probation, I experienced a feeling of doom with the dashing of my academic/career plans. I got in touch with my dream career by just sitting. You know that kind of sitting and staring into space where your eyes are open, but you are not seeing anything? I was sitting at my dorm room desk, in the dark and cold midwestern winter, not seeing anything, not knowing anything, feeling nothing but dread, despair, and doom. The idea came to me that if I looked at the books I was interested in, I could find out what my own dream was and what I should become or do with my life—what my freedom to was for.
I refocused my eyes on my bookshelf and picked up Jung’s Modern Man in Search of a Soul, turned the book over and read that Jung was a psychiatrist. Hmm, I thought, a psychiatrist seems to be someone who can study anything of human interest, not just mental illness, but growth, creativity, anthropology, mysticism, and spirituality. In that moment I decided to become a psychiatrist—a career that has included continual personal growth and an evolving understanding of humanity.
Clinical Reflections: Freedom, Intuition, and Healing
While freedom and doom can show up in one’s body, and our vocational decisions, it can also show up in clinical life. Therapy offers space where freedom and doom dance. Here, relationships are the fulcrum where doom and freedom have the possibility to transform.
When Travis sat opposite of me (Chris) in my office, my first impression was a doomed kid. Travis had been thrown out of two residential mental health facilities. He had damaged furniture, broken windows and threatened staff. He had contacts with law enforcement and had been removed from several schools. He was a victim of physical and sexual abuse and had lived around the United States. His file documented a history of substance use. From my office floor, his case file almost reached the height of my chair seat.
Working as a therapist for our rural county Human Services, I was the last stop in a long and volatile history of his oppositional and defiant behavior. Travis had greasy, long, unkept hair that covered his eyes. His pants were baggy and torn. His T-shirt displayed a cartoon caricature smoking a large marijuana joint. His face was blank. His voice was monotone. He hadn’t bathed for a while nor had visited a dentist. As I faced him, fear churned in the pit of my stomach.
Would he tear up my room, too? I wondered.
Despite a lengthy history of doom, I wanted to know him. To my surprise, he entertained my query. In our first conversation, he briefly mentioned a memory of fishing with his grandfather. It was a short remark. However, something about his recollection caught my attention. For a small moment, life returned to his face. I saw and felt something different.
The following session, I handed him a fishing pole. We left my office and walked to the pier—Lake Michigan was only three blocks from my office. He fished. We talked.
Over the weeks, he found rides to the pier. His mother saw the change. He was more compliant. He also became known to the anglers. They welcomed him into their circle. They loved offering him advice and made sure his tackle box was up to date and full. Travis soaked up the attention like a sponge.
As the months rolled on, he didn’t tear up my office. He didn’t get into legal trouble or get sent to juvenile jail. He wasn’t perfect. However, the behaviors that got him removed from the residential mental health facilities did not surface.
Part of his transformation was due to fishing and the memory of fishing with his grandfather. It was also about being seen beyond doom. It was the experience of freedom in the form of relationships with anglers at the pier and with me.
Travis taught me freedom doesn’t always arise in isolation. It emerges within relational contexts that embody creativity, trust, possibility and presence. The therapy room, at its best, can be such a space. Travis reminds us that the simple gifts of a fishing pole and community can become a powerful act of liberation.
In a similar way, meditation offers us another path of freedom within doom. Just as freedom can arise through relationship, so too can it emerge through stillness.
Meditation, Awareness, and Radical Self-Care
Meditation is an ancient practice that invites us into the present moment—whether that moment is pleasant, unpleasant, or anything in between. Here, freedom and doom are not adversaries. They are welcomed guests and can dance separately or together as they move through our thoughts, body sensations, and emotions.
When meditation holds no preference, we have the best opportunity to see life as it is, rather than how we wish it to be. This seeing gives us the freedom to choose our response, rather than automatically reacting out of habit. In this way, meditation is a practice of freedom—not freedom to escape life’s challenges, but freedom from the reactive patterns that can amplify doom’s grip.
Sitting quietly, thoughts, urges, and fears arise. Instead of clinging or pushing them away, we allow them to be. Each breath and each moment of allowing or being becomes a potential act of liberation.
Recently, my (Chris’) neighbor shared a recent crisis from work. An unknown group had programmed AI to siphon millions of dollars from her institution. Her response surprised me. In addition to addressing the pressing issue, she increased her meditation practice. She cancelled meetings without guilt and meditated even as her phone frantically buzzed beside her. These were not acts of indulgence, but profound expression of freedom rooted in awareness. She knew caring for herself would help place her in the best position to be effective in this crisis.
Meditation can do this. It can nurture the gold within—the unbreakable strand of authenticity, creativity, and agency amidst fear and doom. In meditation, freedom and doom arise and pass away like dancers crossing a stage. Awareness itself is freedom, revealing that doom is not a life sentence but a passing weather pattern.
When we sit with ourselves in this way, we reclaim life from the tyranny of despair. We touch the gold that has always been there, waiting. For a moment, or for a lifetime, it’s where we can become free in the midst of doom.
Freedom, Efficiency, and Modern Constraints
One of the reasons I (Dave) have been thinking about freedom lately is that I am a federal employee—a psychiatrist working at the VA (Veterans Affairs). Federal employees are one of the groups that the current administration has targeted as “others,” those who are called “enemies of the people.” DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) has created fear and uncertainty in the federal workplace, with unclear and threatening emails and communication.
Efficiency is not really DOGE’s goal, but rather indiscriminate slashing of the federal workforce that makes it more difficult to do our jobs. DOGE is the application of unfreedom to the federal workforce, and it creates dilemmas of loyalty to the human values of service and healing versus loyalty to one man’s vision of what the United States should be. Rather than “greatness” or “efficiency,” it is promoting ugliness, meanness, and divisiveness.
Additionally, federal agencies have reported being told they can no longer use certain words, which The New York Times has compiled into a list of “banned words,” such as cultural sensitivity, equality, mental health, Native American, and social justice (Yourish, et al).
Timothy Snyder has written on freedom, unfreedom, and efficiency in the contemporary health care system. He cautions us about the risk to freedom of words that we use and words that we are told we cannot use.
Freedom requires care with words. … In conceding a word, we concede a concept, and in conceding a concept, we give up the thing itself…
A different example is our embrace of efficiency, a nonvalue that poses as the highest value…Efficiency talk distracts us from thinking about purposes and hastens us instead toward calculation regarding how quickly something is being done. Commercial medicine, for example, is efficient in extracting money from the sick…
Efficiency talk is dismissive of virtues, which are presented as hindrances from getting things done…Those who deploy efficiency jargon are actually demanding that you work for their purposes, which you are to accept as a matter of course. In this way, efficiency talk generates submission: we do not choose our ends, but race to realize those of others, (Snyder, On Freedom, 213-214).
“Words create worlds,” as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel has told us. I wrote a series of blogs on this topic of words creating worlds in 2020, as I worried about a slide into fascism in the first Trump administration. Snyder warns us to be careful with our words for what we create but also for concepts we can lose when we lose words.
Snyder tells us that, “Markets cannot be free. Only people can be free. Freedom is a human value. It can be recognized and pursued only by humans,” (Snyder, 215). It is up to the human beings within institutions to hold fast to human values: kindness, compassion, and freedom. The application of free doom (power, efficiency, and “greatness”) against our democracy and public institutions is a threat to freedom of the individual and freedom of society.
Conclusion: Hope as Freedom’s Companion
Freedom or Free Doom? We initially set these up as a dichotomy, a choice between one or the other. Yet we found within the word freedom the seeds of free doom—and perhaps we cannot separate freedom from doom, as positive freedom is always in a dance with the negative partner of doom. This requires ongoing vigilance and creative work to safeguard what it is that makes us human, gives us meaning, and allows us to engage in spontaneous creativity with each other, our society, and the world. Freedom depends on our relationship with doom. We must have faith and hope that there will be abundance for all of us and that we can find meaning and purpose in our periodic forays into doom.
In my (Chris’) book, Hope Opens Doors (unpublished), and a recent artistic project, The Art of Being Sick with my colleague Sophia Tarantino, the Western ideal of the isolated individual is challenged by proposing that hope and freedom are inherently relational. Hope is not just an inner feeling but a generative force that emerges through human connection—through vulnerability, humility, purpose, and shared care. Freedom, likewise, is not a solitary achievement but a condition born from community. Whether through illness or healing, we are reminded that we are not and have never been alone. Our well-being and liberation are bound up with one another. By recognizing suffering as a shared human experience, we invite deeper understanding of freedom, not as escape from pain, but as the creative, collective response to it. This is where hope lives and how it flourishes, dissolving the illusion of isolation and offering us a way forward together.
With regard to the body, illness is a restriction of our freedom as it limits our health and what we are able to do. Our lives are limited, but that does not mean that we cannot have freedom within them. Doom could be seen as any kind of inherent limitation to our power. From the perspective of unchecked power, freedom is a limitation, and fascist power insists on its own freedom to separate us/them, to punish those who are “other,” and to exponentially increase its own “greatness,” its own power. In our lives, we are continually acting and creating. As the late Congressman John Lewis said, “Democracy is not a state. It is an act.” Freedom and democracy are not “things” or “states” we have acquired for eternity, rather they are a way of being in the world, acts that we continue to make, acts of freedom and acts of democracy.
References:
Fromm, Erich. Escape From Freedom. New York: Henry Holt & Company (1941/1969).
Rael, Joseph (Beautiful Painted Arrow) with Mary Elizabeth Marlow. Being & Vibration.
Tulsa: Council Oak Books (1993).
Heschel, Abraham Joshua. Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition (1997).
Lewis, John. “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation.” The New York Times, July 30, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/john-lewis-civil-rights-america.html?referringSource=articleShare.
Yourish, Daniel, Dattar, White, Gamio. “These Words are Disappearing in the New Trump Administration.” The New York Times, March 7, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/07/us/trump-federal-agencies-websites-words-dei.html.
