A few months into his stint on late-15th-century Japanese soil, English sailor John Blackthorne concludes he is surrounded by people who are trapped with no intent of escaping.
Local lord Yabushige’s allegiance sways with the wind, yet he never tries to get out from under the thumb of either of his demanding leaders. Great warrior Buntaro hates his wife and treats her accordingly, yet he’d never demand a divorce. And Mariko, the wife in question, would love to end her life as a statement about her complex family history, yet she consistently follows Buntaro’s orders not to do it, all while making his life, too, a living hell.
At one point, a drunken Buntaro badly beats Mariko. The next day, she pretends nothing has happened. John believes that, this time, things have gone too far, and he gives Mariko the best philosophical advice most Westerners could give in such a situation: “I see you. Your disgust for him. If you want to be free of that shitless coward, then be free of him.”
When Mariko claims John doesn’t understand, he doubles down on his speech: “Honestly, you’re shuffling around with your manners and your buried self, for what? My life is mine and yours is yours. If you can’t see that, you’ll never be free of this prison.” “No, John,” Mariko responds. “It is you who is imprisoned. If freedom is all you ever live for, you will never be free of yourself.”
Naval Ravikant is a modern-day philosopher aiming to unite Eastern and Western approaches. One of his big perspective shifts was to change his definition of freedom: “My old definition was ‘freedom to,’ freedom to do anything I want. Now the freedom that I’m looking for is internal freedom. It’s ‘freedom from.'” Whether it’s freedom from reaction, from feeling angry, or from feeling sad, whereas Naval used to look towards agency, now he is looking towards tranquility. This is the gap between John and the people around him, and it’s a tough one to bridge.
If he had a chance, John would be back on his boat and out on the sea in a heartbeat. Meanwhile, his Japanese friends mind less where their lives are going, nor how long they will last, and more which purpose they’ll ultimately serve. As long as the overall mission is the right one — and by and large, they trust that it is even if they can’t see it — they’ll gladly settle for “freedom from” instead of “freedom to.”
Of course, both approaches have their limits. Over the course of John’s story, plenty of his friends lose their lives for ultimately no reason at all. At the same time, John constantly feels trapped despite having a meaningful life right in front of him. As it turns out, we can have both too much freedom and too little at the same time — they’re just different kinds.
Don’t live for freedom alone, yet don’t sacrifice your agency altogether. Balance “freedom to” and “freedom from,” and you can follow both your own purpose and the one the universe has set out for you. Ultimately, John and Mariko are two halves of the same idea, and if that’s what it takes, you can be all the pieces it takes to solve your own puzzle.