disentanglement vs. engulfment
disentanglement (noun) – the act of separating or freeing something from a tangled or confused state
engulfment (noun) – the state of being surrounded or submerged in something that can feel crushing or overwhelming
What is your current state of involvement? How wrapped up in your own thoughts and feelings are you? Can you do what you want, or do you feel a need to ask someone else for permission first? As you ponder these possibilities, perhaps you can better perceive your present level of personal freedom. Are you living in a state of engulfment, or have you put in the work to establish your independent freedom and disentanglement?
Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.
-Virginia Woolf
Many want to enforce control
Yet I simply want to flow and roll
Along with the waves of all of life
Enjoying the good, learning through strife.
Are you asking for a fee from under a bridge?
Do you hoard cold emotions like a cowardly fridge?
Freedom allows you to do what is best.
Maybe help others. Perhaps take a rest.
Everything can be taken from a [person] but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
-Victor E. Frankl
Are you choosing for yourself, free and clear?
Or are you allowing others to direct and steer?
Could it even be fear calling the shots?
Acting small will not untangle knots.
Is it quieter? Is it safer? Yes, perhaps.
The best things will not be dropped in our laps.
We should put in the work and look within.
Free yourself slowly; grant yourself this win.
I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one’s self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.
-Virginia Woolf
We can all be free, controlling our lanes.
Master your emotions; love your brains.
Freedom will reveal deep, serene peace.
We can own it forever; no need to lease.
You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless [they have their] freedom.
-Malcolm X
Make up your mind that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.
-Pericles
Courageously proceed towards freedom by disentangling yourself from engulfments.
Maybe it is wise. Maybe it is dumb. Time will tell.