I enjoyed this post, although I don't necessarily think sucess is essentially what is taking our freedom away. Firstly, what do you understand by sucess? I believe it might be highly subjective.
Do you think success is economical, professional, intellectual...? Is it a static goal or is it a journey? That changes how it influences your freedom. In essence, the definition and meaning that you give to your own life will change very much I free do you feel.
I don't think that success itself is the reason of constrained freedom, I believe that "ident... (read more)
I agree that success has multiple dimensions, and I think "identity" is a plausible explanation for what's going on here.
But also, previously when I had asked "do children lose childlike curiosity?", an answer that came back was "are we even confident that 'childlike curiosity' is a thing?". This comment reminded me that I'd still like someone to look into that in more detail.
1limerott
Strong upvote. Success doesn't limit us. Success changes us. It is what we become that limits us.
Live free of attachment and you will always be free.
6alkjash
In my writing I err on the side of using simple words in the hopes that the charitable reader interprets it in whatever way it makes the most sense. Here I think I define "success" as "psychological success" = whatever makes you currently feel successful.
I definitely agree that strong attachment to identity is one of the big factors that constrain freedom, however I disagree with reducing this entire phenomenon to one mechanism. In my personal experience whenever I break what seems to me to be the biggest barrier, e.g. "identity", to my freedom, I usually make progress for a period of time only to find another, entirely different barrier, in my way. To use a video game analogy, this is a final boss with multiple stages and "identity" is probably the first stage that most people get stuck on.
It seems like the shape of reality is itself bent in such a way to constrain our freedom, independent of whatever psychological attachments we have internally that only make matters worse.
I enjoyed this post, although I don't necessarily think sucess is essentially what is taking our freedom away. Firstly, what do you understand by sucess? I believe it might be highly subjective.
Do you think success is economical, professional, intellectual...? Is it a static goal or is it a journey? That changes how it influences your freedom. In essence, the definition and meaning that you give to your own life will change very much I free do you feel.
I don't think that success itself is the reason of constrained freedom, I believe that "ident... (read more)