When we think of freedom, we think of it’s literal definition, which, as defined by Google Dictionary, is “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint”. Freedom to us means being able to do what we wish and not being under the command of someone else.
To David Foster Wallace, however, freedom is something else. In This is Water he describes “the really important kind of freedom” as “[involving] attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over”. According to him, “That is real freedom” (5).
Wallace describes freedom as living consciously and being aware of what’s going on around us. He describes freedom as having the ability to deter from our innate self-centeredness and having a mindset of empathy.
At first, I disagreed with Wallace. I agreed that living consciously, being aware of your surroundings, sacrificing and having empathy are important things to do in life. But I didn’t understand what this had to do with freedom. I mean think about it - what does freedom have to do with being aware of your surroundings and sacrificing for others? I thought that these characteristics would perhaps fit better under a different word.
But then I understood that, on a much more abstract and figurative level, it has everything to do with freedom. Wallace is talking about being free from our unconscious, “hard-wired default-setting” (1).
Our innate unconsciousness and self-centeredness is the “hindrance or restraint” described in the definition of freedom. Once we are able to put these aside, we will have acquired Wallace's definition of capital-F Freedom.
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