Freedom Redefined — Living through pandemic in China
Hi, my pre-covid world friends,
Long time no see.
It has been four years since the pandemic started. It hit me hard. I had to pause many things abruptly. I was enjoying the best time of my life, with some of you, exploring the world.
Then, my connection with the world seems shut.
The last four years of living through covid in China may seem like turmoil in one's life.
But retrospectively, I'm glad I was here for the experience. I had fun and grew a lot.
We pursue freedom to escape or fight against the things we disvalue.
A lot of people yell for freedom because of their deep fear of being in an oppressed situation.
I was like that, too.
I deeply feared being back home with a cutoff connection with the world.
I was afraid I couldn't travel and explore fascinating experiences with open-minded people.
I seem doomed not to be able to make money in the way I planned.
Yet, standing here, I couldn't have felt freer. I realize that the best way to deal with the fear of not being free is to live the fear.
I moved back with my family after more than a decade. It gave me chances to resurface and heal childhood trauma.
I moved to Shenzhen to explore new business opportunities. It opened my view of economic growth and taught me how to create value in practice.
I had to use more tools to access information from this side of the world. But I got to reclaim my connection with root identity and Chinese culture and unveil its magnificent wisdom.
I have rarely traveled in the last four years. But I realized I've accomplished so much in self-work from past explorations and no longer crave counting countries.
True freedom is no longer fearing. The real pursuit is to experience all the possible emotions you could have or even are afraid of experiencing.
Suffering is a good thing. After the pain, you know it won't kill you to death. Then you're resilient to it. You're truly free from that pain.
The only to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
Albert Camus
True freedom lies in your mind.
With an identity with many contradictory labels of freedom, I've learned that freedom is subjective.
We are so trapped by the depicted freedom from the media.
There isn't a utopia in this physical reality where we live perfectly free in all aspects. It's against the entropy law. There will always be chaos as we grow.
But, you have radical freedom to choose how you think, speak, express yourself, and do those smartly.
It's like a game. Living through the pandemic is just doing it in hard mode. But the hard mode player had more fun.
It was like scavenger hunts to trace hidden resources. I had to use extra thinking to access things usually obvious to other parts of the world. The information gap isn't a lack of freedom.
And there are a lot of fun surprises along the way that the majority couldn't find.
My time living in the US wasn't in easy mode either. The pathetic thing is that people trap themselves in the pursuit of freedom, with the ignorance to accept there are various ways of living free.
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
Soren Kierkegaard
No one can stop us from feeling free.
You can learn a language to see a new world of information and mindset.
You can think however you want and hold whatever opinions you want, even if others shut you off.
You can be anywhere you want to experience, even if you don't have a passport. By foot. By Google Earth. By money. By imagination. By meditation. By hope.
Only your mind can limit where you are.