Freedom and Suffering: Is Breaking Free from Constraints the Beginning of Pain?
The desire for freedom sometimes drives a person to throw themselves into destruction. This profound longing for liberation may well be the strongest force that leads a person toward the abyss while believing they are moving toward salvation. The question that arises here is not a passing one; rather, it is among the most persistent questions throughout human thought, whether people consciously recognize it or not.
Why Do We Suffer the Moment We Leave Our Constraints?
This is the same question that appears in many different forms. A person may ask: Why would God punish us if we disobey Him? Why is there punishment for violating commands, laws, or obligations? Why does every departure from established boundaries seem to lead to some form of pain or punishment?
After years of reflection and reconsideration, I did not conclude that suffering is imposed upon human beings merely for the sake of tormenting them. Instead, I found the issue to be far deeper than that. I ultimately reached the conclusion that suffering, when its concept is examined to its deepest level, is almost identical to freedom itself. I no longer perceive a fundamental distinction between suffering and freedom, because the moment a person leaves a constraint, they immediately enter the realm of suffering, even if they choose to rename that suffering with another term—most notably, "freedom."
Freedom, in this sense, is nothing more than the freedom to choose the particular form of suffering one will experience. The moment a person escapes one limitation, they find themselves standing before countless doors of pain, choosing among them as they wish, yet never escaping them altogether. They simply move from one form of suffering to another, believing each time that they have come closer to liberation, while in reality they are merely passing through different doors leading to the same suffering.
As the years passed, and the more closely I observed and contemplated life, the more convinced I became that every blessing is bound by some form of constraint. In fact, I have come close to believing that there is not a single blessing that exists without limitation. This aligns with the previous idea: suffering is free, while blessing is constrained.
If a person wishes to enjoy blessings, they must accept constraint. But if they seek complete liberation from every limitation, they merely open the door to suffering. Liberation does not grant happiness; it grants only the freedom to choose the manner in which one will suffer.
Freedom as Another Face of Suffering
From this perspective, I began to notice that people seek freedom only when they are already suffering. A person who is genuinely content does not feel an urgent need for liberation. The happy individual is not preoccupied with freedom in the same way as someone living under hardship and pain, because the desire for freedom originates from the feeling that one's existing constraint has become unbearable.
Thus, freedom and suffering become inseparable. The mere desire for freedom reveals the existence of a prior suffering, and the attempt to break a constraint indicates that the individual can no longer endure it. The longing for liberation is therefore not evidence of happiness; more often than not, it is evidence of distress.
I also reached a personal observation that repeatedly proved true throughout my life whenever I experienced even a relative degree of freedom. I never felt that freedom alone fulfilled me or made me complete. On the contrary, the greater my freedom became, the stronger my sense of incompleteness grew. It was as though freedom itself generated a permanent feeling of insufficiency, preventing any lasting sense of fulfillment or stability.
Indeed, I often found myself creating suffering for my own sake simply because I was free. It was as though suffering became the means by which a person proves to themselves that they still possess freedom of choice. For this reason, I no longer believe that freedom necessarily leads to peace. More often, it leads to an endless search, an enduring sense of incompleteness, and perpetual movement toward a destination that is never fully reached.
From this point, I began to notice the difference between the constrained person and the liberated one. I observed relationships based on unrestricted freedom and relationships shaped by commitment. I examined sexuality when understood as absolute freedom and when understood within the framework of restraint. I looked at the individual who lives without boundaries and the one who deliberately chooses limits for themselves. After prolonged observation, I found no human condition more elevated than that of the person who willingly accepts self-imposed constraints.
Chosen Constraint and the Birth of Value
The value of restraint does not lie in coercion, but in choice. A person who has the ability not to commit, yet chooses commitment of their own free will; who could fail to appear, yet keeps their promise; who could neglect their responsibilities, yet fulfills them despite the absence of external compulsion—such a person embodies a higher form of human excellence.
For this reason, we often find that a person may have a valid excuse for arriving late, yet still strives to arrive on time. Others perform acts of kindness without being obligated to do so, or remain faithful to their promises even when they could easily escape them. These actions reflect more than discipline; they reveal a conscious choice to embrace limitation, transforming that limitation into a source of dignity rather than humiliation.
Conversely, the more a person frees themselves from every form of constraint, the more I find their seriousness diminishing. Their value, both in their own eyes and in the eyes of others, gradually declines. It is as though absolute freedom strips away their weight and significance until they resemble a stock market share in continuous decline, falling without ever finding a point at which to stabilize.
For this reason, I consistently found the completely liberated individual living in a state of ongoing suffering. I never encountered what could truly be called completely free happiness. Every form of joy I observed was connected to some kind of commitment, relationship, responsibility, or purpose that imposed limits within which life could acquire meaning. Happiness detached from every constraint simply did not exist, no matter how extensively I searched for it.
This conclusion was not based on a fleeting opinion or an isolated personal experience. Rather, it emerged from repeated observation across many different situations in life. The more deeply I reflected, the more convinced I became that people seek liberation only from that which causes them suffering. The mere statement, "I want to be free," already reveals that the individual is experiencing some form of pain within the thing they wish to escape. Had they truly found blessing within it, the desire for liberation would never have arisen.
When Identity Becomes a Source of Suffering
From this perspective, one may argue that anyone who declares a desire to escape the system in which they live simultaneously reveals that they are suffering within that system. Escape is sought only by the prisoner, and liberation is desired only by the one who experiences their constraints as painful. Those who genuinely experience blessing are not preoccupied with fleeing from it.
This idea opens another avenue for reflection: what happens when a person attempts to free themselves from their own identity?
If a man seeks liberation from his masculinity under the banner of freedom, then the question becomes: Why does he wish to be liberated in the first place?
I do not believe that a man attempts to abandon his masculinity unless that masculinity has itself become a source of suffering. As I have argued before, masculinity does not lose its meaning simply because it exists; rather, it loses meaning when the sense of obligation that gives it value disappears. When a man no longer feels that anything calls upon him to embody manhood, the meaning of masculinity gradually fades within him, and its existence begins to appear pointless.
Once a person reaches this stage, they no longer perceive their identity as something valuable. Instead, they experience it as a burden they wish to cast aside. They do not seek freedom from masculinity because masculinity itself has lost its essence, but because they have lost their sense of its significance. Liberation then becomes, in their eyes, an attempt to escape the feeling of meaninglessness.
At this point, the concept of value emerges as a central element of this perspective. A thing does not acquire value merely because it exists, but because it is desired and recognized. A product that no one seeks loses its value, and a quality whose owner no longer perceives as meaningful gradually fades from their consciousness, even if it continues to exist in reality.
Accordingly, this perspective argues that when individuals lose their sense of the value of their identity, they gradually begin to free themselves from it. Yet this liberation does not bring genuine peace, because what has been lost is not merely a characteristic, but a fundamental source of meaning in their existence.
From this arises a condition resembling self-alienation. A person no longer feels connected to who they are but instead experiences an inner division, attempting to distance themselves from themselves while remaining unable to escape their own identity. They continue to carry the identity they wish to abandon, yet they experience it as a burden rather than as a source of value.
Ultimately, this gives rise to complex relationships among individuals who share the same inner experience. Each person sees in the other a reflection of their own suffering and seeks an explanation for it. Yet such relationships fail to produce stability because they are built upon mutual attempts to escape pain rather than upon the construction of shared meaning.
From Alienation to the Distortion of Identity
Within this framework, the relationship between the two parties becomes dominated by hesitation and uncertainty. Each seeks liberation from something, yet neither truly knows where they wish to go afterward. As a result, no role achieves stability or fulfillment, because the desire to escape becomes stronger than the desire to settle within a clearly defined identity.
Thus, the central conflict in this perspective is not between man and woman, but between the individual and the meaning of their own identity. The more a person loses their sense of the value of who they are, the stronger their desire becomes to escape that identity. Yet the more they escape, the more deeply they experience the suffering from which they were trying to flee in the first place.
When individuals lose confidence in the value of their identity, they do not merely distance themselves from it; this loss also shapes the way they relate to others. Relationships no longer function primarily as means of mutual growth but may instead become spaces in which each person projects their internal crisis onto the other.
This condition may be compared to someone preparing to leave forever a place where they have lived for many years. A noble individual departs while leaving that place as they found it, seeing no justification for damaging it simply because they are leaving. By contrast, someone who has completely lost their sense of belonging may begin to neglect or even harm the place, believing that they will never return and therefore have no reason to preserve it.
This analogy is used to interpret certain forms of human behavior. A person who has internally decided to abandon a particular identity may begin—whether consciously or unconsciously—to distort that identity, because they no longer regard themselves as belonging to it, and because portraying it negatively helps justify the decision to separate from it.
Distorting Identity as a Justification for Departure
In this sense, distorting the image of masculinity or femininity becomes part of the process of separating from the meaning they represent. A person does not merely leave behind what they wish to abandon; they may also attempt to convince themselves and others that what they left was never worth preserving in the first place. In doing so, departure becomes psychologically easier to justify.
Accordingly, the struggle is directed less toward others than toward the self. Individuals attempt to persuade themselves that what they have abandoned was never truly valuable, because acknowledging its value would make the act of abandoning it far more painful.
From this perspective, certain relationships embody a profound paradox. They unite individuals who no longer wish to remain in their own positions, yet who remain connected to one another. The relationship becomes an encounter between two people who are both trying to escape, while each person's presence simultaneously reinforces the other's attachment to what they are attempting to leave behind.
For this reason, the relationship is likened to a man and a woman standing together at the edge of a cliff. Both wish to jump, and each encourages the other to do so—not because either possesses salvation for the other, but because they share the same experience of suffering and the same desire to escape the condition in which they find themselves.
ذInternal Separation Before External Separation
From this perspective, such a relationship becomes fundamentally contradictory to the very idea of relationship itself. A relationship, by its nature, is expected to build, stabilize, and reinforce meaning. Here, however, it becomes a means through which both individuals encourage one another to separate from meaning rather than strengthen it.
According to this view, confusion regarding social roles further intensifies the crisis. A person who attempts to perform every role simultaneously may ultimately become incapable of fulfilling any of them completely. Every role requires commitment, focus, and acceptance of its limitations. One who rejects all boundaries can never truly become established within any single role.
This perspective also interprets certain forms of destructive behavior within relationships in the same way. A person who has internally decided to abandon a particular meaning may gradually become less concerned with preserving it, just as someone who believes they are leaving a place forever may stop caring for it as they once did when they still felt they belonged there.
Consequently, harming the relationship or distorting the image of the other person may represent the outward expression of an inner separation that had already taken place. The individual first abandons the meaning internally, and only afterward do the consequences of that departure appear in their behavior and actions.
Freedom and Suffering: The Conclusion of This Perspective
This perspective ultimately arrives at what it considers its central conclusion: freedom and suffering are not separate concepts. Rather, when freedom is understood as complete liberation from every form of constraint, it becomes nothing other than another face of suffering. The more a person disconnects from the very constraints that provide meaning, the more vulnerable they become to feelings of emptiness and meaninglessness.
By contrast, blessing is inseparable from constraint, because it is constraint that gives identity its meaning, grants commitment its value, and enables a person to feel that they fulfill a role of genuine significance within the world they inhabit.
Accordingly, this perspective distinguishes between suffering and blessing. Suffering, by its very nature, is fundamentally the same regardless of the individual experiencing it, because it is rooted in the loss of meaning and the abandonment of constraint. Blessings, however, appear in countless forms, for they arise from different roles, different commitments, and the unique manner in which each person lives out their own identity.
Thus, this argument concludes that the true differences between human beings are not found in the nature of suffering, but in the forms of blessing they experience. Suffering itself remains—according to this perspective—a single human experience with many causes, all of which ultimately return to the question that began this entire journey:
What happens to a human being when they come to believe that freedom is the path to salvation?
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