Is Freedom An Illusion?
And Can We Afford It?
“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” — Søren Kierkegaard
Everyone wants freedom.
But freedom is often drowning in a sea of possibilities.
When we’re multi-talented, we can be anything we want.
Which means we often end up being nothing.
“Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” — Simone de Beauvoir
Freedom isn’t the absence of constraints.
Freedom is your choice in how you respond to them.
Too much structure squeezes us into a tiny box.
Not enough structure, and we drown in endless possibilities.
We need a creative container with enough structure to hold us
and enough freedom for our creative spirit to breathe.
Build a Creative Container
Before Bruce Lee became a Hollywood icon, he was:
a cha-cha dancing champion (yes, really!)
a philosophy student
a dishwasher in Seattle
a Chinese philosophy teacher
a Wing Chun practitioner
a street fighter
a boxing fanatic
a fencing student
a film choreographer.
A multi-dimensional thinker rooted in Taoism,
He practised Wu Wei, “effortless action.”
Wing Chun eventually felt too rigid as a martial art.
“All fixed patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.” — Bruce Lee
So he built his own martial arts and life philosophy.
He niched up…
Wing Chun,
boxing
fencing
dance
street fighting
strength training
and Taoist philosophy
into a formless, adaptive martial art:
Jeet Kune Do — “a style with no style.”
To stand out, we need to create our own methodology.
A way to synthesise many of our skills and passions
to create something new.
Like Michelin star chefs, we combine multiple ingredients
to create our own signature dish.
A dish so tasty it creates word of mouth.
This is what Bruce Lee did.
The One Inch Punch
His 1964 Long Beach demonstration changed everything.
Bruce Lee demonstrated his one-inch punch.
A punch to the chest so powerful it forced grown men across the room.
It worked.
Everyone was talking about him and his unique martial arts style.
Hollywood movie stars Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar hired Bruce to train them in his martial arts style and philosophy.
This is where he began making industry contacts.
Then he got hired as Cato in The Green Hornet.
Then the film producers got interested in him.
Bruce Lee became a writer, producer, director,
and the star of many of his biggest movies.
He created his own operating system.
This is how multi-talented misfits fulfil their potential.
Not by niching down.
By niching up, stacking multiple things into a methodology and philosophy that allows them to stand out.
The Dizziness of Infinite Possibility
Kierkegaard said existential angst comes from too much freedom.
Angst is the anxiety of unlimited choices.
When you can become anyone, you’re scared you’ll choose the wrong version of yourself and waste your time.
When every path is possible, no path feels right.
It’s a structure problem.
A creative container isn’t a cage
It’s a philosophy built from your talents, passions, and worldview.
This allows your multiple passions to breathe and co-exist in a single direction.
It becomes your north star
A Structure of Freedom
We don’t thrive in rigid lanes.
We thrive in structured freedom.
A system without a system.
A niche without a niche.
An identity spacious enough for all our passions.
Jeet Kune Do wasn’t a discipline.
Bruce Lee called it “a style without a style.”
It was a container for everything Bruce Lee loved.
Freedom inside structure.
We’re not stuck because we lack discipline.
We’re paralysed because we lack a container big enough to hold our multidimensional thinking.
Misfits don’t need rules.
We need a personal operating system, a guiding philosophy.
Leap of Faith
You can’t solve existential angst with logic.
You have to leap.
You have to move.
You cannot think your way out of overthinking.
Overthinking is an addiction, a Fugazi.
“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” Søren Kierkegaard