The American Dream

Recently, I read a Time article about the novelist Jonathan Franzen. It was about his new novel Freedom and the decline of the American novel. Franzen’s novel is about a typical American upper middle class family living in the suburbs, with unfulfilled desires and superficial happiness. It’s a criticism of modern America’s obsession with anything that takes away “freedom.”

We’ve become so obsessed with simply the idea of freedom that we’ve forgotten that freedom is simply a means to an end, assuming the end is to have a meaningful life.

Personally, I love freedom. It’s easily what I love most about graduating from college and leaving the college bubble. Especially living in a city, there’s options and choices everywhere you look. New hobbies to take up, graduate programs to apply to, friends to meet, food carts to sample. It’s great having such a commitment-free life. I can do whatever I want, whenever.

I know, though, that living in this sort of freedom-driven world can only be satisfying for so long. The unfortunate thing about a commitment-free life is that there’s no investment, and so the returns can be pretty shallow.

Take for instance, my marathon training. I’ve been taking my training really relaxed, running when I want, trying not to put too much pressure on it. Running in college used to be so stressful for me, so this change is great because I never get too stressed from it. That’s the best thing about freedom, you can always walk away whenever something gets too stressful.

The flip side? You always have an out from every “commitment”. You never work through struggles, and it’s kind of the whole “no pain, no gain,” idea.

In fact, Franzen explains in his interview:

“One of the ways of surrendering freedom is to actually have convictions.”

When you believe something, it’s scary, because you have to make decisions not just based on our animal-like immediate desires to make decisions, but you have to think about what is best for your vision.

I like for my life to be a sort of y = 3 sin x graph rather than a y = 1, assuming the y-axis represent happiness. (My friend Mooks and I once planned to write a book about math functions and relationships). Having the freedom to try new and different things, you can maintain a certain level of happiness, never getting too down on yourself. Whereas sticking by your beliefs can have big payoffs and also big pains.

Taking advantage of our freedom and eating that extra piece of bacon, buying that new pair of shoes, or whatever other general satisfaction of a superficial desire you can think of, never seems to be as satisfying as it seems. But to be able to say, at the end of the day, that when you were challenged, you held firm to your convictions, I think that brings about a real feel of satisfaction.

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

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