I want freedom, not love

People often say, "I want to be loved."

To be needed. To be special. To be irreplaceable to someone.

I think that's a completely natural feeling.

But lately I've been thinking that what I really want might not be love. It might be freedom.

More than being loved, being able to decide my own life.

More than being needed by someone, being able to choose where I'm going.

Maybe that's what I'm after.

Love comes with conditions

When you get close to someone, expectations appear.

Text me more.
Put me first.
Stay with me.
Don't change.

Before you know it, "I love you" starts to carry "I want you to do this" inside it.

That isn't wrong. As long as we're involved with other people, expectations are natural.

But I don't want to live only to meet someone else's expectations.

Caring about someone is different from handing them your life.

I don't want to lose that line.

Love is outside; freedom is inside

Love always involves another person.

However much you love someone, there's no guarantee they'll love you the same way. However much you care, there's no guarantee the relationship will last.

Love can't be completed by one person alone. I think that's exactly why it's beautiful, and also why it's uncertain.

Freedom is different.

You get to decide what you call freedom.

Freedom isn't necessarily having enough money.

Of course money gives you options. You can choose where to work and where to live. It's easier to leave a bad situation.

But there are people with money who are still bound by what others think of them.

They want to say no and can't. They're afraid of being disliked, so they don't speak their mind. They've convinced themselves that the life others want for them is their own.

Can you call that freedom?

On the other hand, there are people without much money who decide how they spend their own time. They choose who to spend time with. They can choose to be alone. They decide for themselves what matters.

To me, freedom isn't about what you have. It's about keeping the standard for your life inside yourself.

Whether I'm loved isn't something I can decide alone.

But how I live is.

That's why I'm drawn more to freedom than to love.

Even when you like someone, you sometimes want distance

I like them, but I want to be alone.

They matter to me, but I want some space.

I love them, but I don't want to be tied down.

At first glance that looks contradictory. But I don't think it really is.

Liking someone and wanting to choose your own life can exist at the same time.

"If you like them, you'd want to be together all the time." "If you love them, you'd want to share everything." Maybe those are just a template of love that somebody made up.

Everyone has their own distance.

Sometimes you want to be closer, sometimes further apart. Being able to decide that distance myself matters to me.

What matters is direction, not strength

Let's think of a life as a vector.

In dependent love, two vectors converge toward the other person's center.

The other person becomes the center of your life. When they smile, you're happy. When they pull away, you're anxious. And if they leave, you lose even your sense of which way you're going.

That's because your axis is outside you.

A free relationship is a little different.

Each person moves in their own direction. Sometimes the two lines run side by side, sometimes they draw closer, sometimes they drift apart. And now and then, they cross.

What matters isn't that two people head in exactly the same direction.

If anything, it's because each has their own direction that meeting means something.

The quality of a relationship isn't decided only by how strong the love is. It's decided by where that love is pointing.

Is it a love that pulls the other person toward you?

Or a love that lets them go on with their own life?

I want to keep myself at the center of my life.

Romance can be part of life. I just don't want to put all of life inside romance.

Not depending on being needed

Being needed makes you feel valuable. Being loved makes you feel safe.

So without noticing, you can start thinking, "If I lose this person, I'll have nothing left."

But in that moment, you've handed your worth over to someone else's affection.

If they love you, you have value. If they leave, you don't.

That way, you end up leaving even the judgment of your own life to someone else.

This isn't about not needing to be loved.

Being loved is wonderful. Being needed is too.

I just don't think it should become your whole reason for existing.

Even if no one loves me, I remain. Even if no one needs me, life goes on.

It's because you can think that way that you can love someone freely.

Not "I can't live without you," but "I can live on my own. And I want to be with you."

A relationship where you can say that looks more beautiful to me.

Freedom is not standing still

Freedom doesn't mean being alone or throwing away responsibility.

Today I want to be with someone.
Tomorrow I want to be alone.
I want to lose myself in something.
I suddenly want to go somewhere I've never been.
Some days I don't want to do anything at all.

Being able to move, by myself, in whatever direction I want at that moment.

That's what freedom is to me.

And one more thing. I think freedom also means not staying in one place forever.

People swing to extremes sometimes. There are periods when you throw yourself into work. Periods when you want to be with someone all the time. And periods when you don't want to see anyone.

I think that's fine.

People say everything is about balance. I think that's true.

But balance isn't always staying in the middle.

It's fine to swing far to one side. What matters is not staying there forever.

Schopenhauer compared life to a pendulum swinging between pain and boredom.

Escape pain, and boredom is waiting. Try to escape boredom, and desire and pain arise again.

I read something slightly different in that.

Maybe the swinging itself is what living is.

But not just any change will do.

Forced change is not freedom.

Being moved around for someone else's convenience. Being taken somewhere you don't want to go. Having the direction of your life decided regardless of your will.

That may be change, but it isn't freedom.

What matters isn't change itself. It's being able to keep choosing in the middle of change.

How far to swing. Which way to go. When to come back. And where to head next.

Being able to decide that for yourself.

That's what I mean by freedom.

I'm not running from love

That doesn't mean I want to reject love.

If anything, I think there's a kind of love that only exists between free people.

Not owning the other person.
Not trying to change them.
Not fearing time apart.
Not taking their life's choices away.

Not "I want you to be mine," but "I just want you to be you."

Being able to feel that.

And having them feel, toward you, "You can stay yourself, too."

Maybe freedom and love aren't opposites.

It's because there is freedom that love becomes a choice.

Not together because you're tied.

Able to live alone, and together anyway.

To me, that looks like a much deeper love.