Paradoxically, human beings become most powerless when they face absolutely no restrictions. If you look closely at a life absent of love, you will find a vast, zero-gravity freedom—as if one has been abandoned entirely alone in the dead center of space. Not knowing where to go means you can go anywhere; not knowing what to aim for means you can target anything. It is, quite literally, a state of infinity.
The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre described this by stating, "Man is condemned to be free." A state where there are no chains binding you, but at the same time, no gravity holding you down. This absolute freedom to do anything comes across not as a blessing, but rather as a paralyzing terror. For there are very few who can entirely withstand that immense, yawning emptiness.
Yet, a peculiar thing happens. When we escape this unbearable state of freedom and come to "love" someone, we undeniably bind and subordinate ourselves to the coordinates of another person. Our time, our emotions, and even our plans for the future are mortgaged to them. Objectively speaking, it is a blatant deprivation of freedom. Mysteriously, however, we feel far more "free" when we love than when we do not. Where does this contradiction stem from?
The Freedom of Spacewalking Tethered to an Umbilical Cord
The secret lies in whether or not one has a "fallback," or what psychology calls a "Secure Base."
If freedom without love is "the freedom of being abandoned alone in the middle of a vast desert," freedom with love is "the freedom of spacewalking while attached to a sturdy lifeline." A person left alone in the desert can walk in any direction, but with every single step, they must battle the terror of being stranded. On the other hand, an astronaut who knows that—even while suspended in the void—a strong, unbreakable lifeline is connected to their back can fly through that void more boldly and daringly than anyone else, precisely to the length of that tether.
This is the "freedom of elasticity" that love grants us. The conviction that even if I trip and break on the stage of the world, there is that one person I can return to who will silently listen to my fragmented story. Paradoxically, the relief provided by that "fallback" emboldens us to plunge into the world without hesitation. Ironically, because we are bound, we gain the elasticity to fly even further.
Humanity is Completed by Being Bound
Ultimately, the answer to the question "Which state is truly more free?" becomes clear.
Rather than an empty freedom where one is responsible for nothing but can go nowhere, a freedom where one is tied to someone yet uses that relationship as a stepping stone to ruthlessly expand their horizons into the world is far more substantial and dense.
Human beings lose their way in a state of infinite freedom; however, the moment a single constraint called "you" comes into existence, they finally find their own orbit and begin to sprint. Therefore, love is not a subordination that makes humans weak. On the contrary, it is the most beautiful restraint in the world—one that tethers a human being so that they may become their most courageous self in this vast and terrifying universe.
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