I Thought I Was Free
For a long time, I believed I was free... A reflection on freedom, free will and the reality of the human condition.
Airton Humber · 19/03/26 · 4 min de leitura
There is a knot in my chest when I start writing about this.
It is not anger.
It is not a desire to prove that I am right.
It is a mixture of discomfort… and compassion.
Discomfort, because I begin to notice how much we were taught to believe in things that seem true, but are not.
And compassion, because for a long time I also lived this way, believing, defending… without realizing it.
Maybe this weight exists because I am not looking at theories.
I am looking at real life.
At situations close to me… at people I love…
at real struggles, sincere attempts…
And that does not put me in the position of someone who has ready answers.
But of someone who is also looking more carefully…
trying to understand what is, in fact, happening.
For a long time, I believed I had free will.
That I could choose whatever path I wanted.
That, faced with good and evil, the decision was in my hands.
This seemed so obvious… so natural… that I never stopped to question it.
But, with time, looking at my own life more honestly, I began to notice something that disturbed me deeply:
even knowing what was good… I kept doing evil to myself and, consequently, to others.
It was not a lack of knowledge.
I knew.
It was not a lack of awareness.
I noticed.
And still… I could not sustain the good that I myself recognized.
It was at that point that something began to break inside me.
Because, if I were truly free,
choosing the good would be the natural path.
But that is not what we see.
Neither in ourselves… nor in the world.
What we see are people who:
-
know, but do not do
-
want, but cannot
-
promise, but do not sustain
This is not the absence of choice.
This is evidence of imprisonment.
Maybe the problem was never the ability to choose…
But the condition of the one who is choosing.
Because there is a very big difference between:
making choices
and
being free to choose.
It took me a very long time to see this.
Because believing that I am free gives me a sense of control.
But recognizing that I am not…
is what begins to open space for the truth.
This realization did not stay only with me.
I remember a situation with a boy of about twelve, in a simple neighborhood where violence is part of everyday life.
He arrived sad, because he had reacted aggressively to a classmate who had insulted his mother.
We talked calmly.
And, as he looked more closely at what had happened, something became clear to him:
he had reacted with violence… from a lie.
That had not been a thought-out decision.
It was natural.
But there was an even deeper point there.
Over other conversations, he had already begun to notice something about himself, something that we adults often take years to admit:
there is in us a natural inclination toward evil.
It is not something we learn later.
It is something that is already present.
And, at that moment, he did not try to justify himself.
He acknowledged it.
I asked how he felt afterward.
He said he felt bad.
Not because someone told him to…
but because, somehow, he knew that was not the good.
And this brought an important clarity:
it was not a lack of knowing what was right.
It was a lack of freedom to sustain the good he already recognized.
So we talked about another possibility.
Not of trying to control himself…
but of, in that moment, listening to a different direction.
A few weeks later, he came back with a new story.
He said that, in a similar situation, he felt like reacting the same way.
The desire was there.
That had not changed.
But, in that moment, he remembered the conversation…
and did not follow the impulse.
He still did not know exactly how to act…
but, for the first time, he did not do what was natural.
And, as he told me this, he said something simple:
“this time I felt good.”
Maybe that is why this becomes even more evident in some more extreme situations.
Just look at the reality of many drug addicts.
In many cases, they turn to religion as an attempt at change.
They change their environment.
They adopt new practices.
They try to adjust their behavior.
And, for a while, they even succeed.
But, in many cases, the cycle returns.
Not for lack of effort.
Not for lack of desire to change.
But because the root remains the same.
And this reveals something important:
it is not just a matter of behavior.
Because, if it were, it would be enough to decide differently…
and everything would be solved.
But it is not.
And maybe that is exactly where one of the greatest confusions lies:
trying to treat as behavior…
something that is, in truth, a condition.
It was then that I began to notice something that completely changed the way I saw life.
The problem was never only what I did.
The problem was where I was living from.
As long as I believed I was free,
I kept trying to change by effort.
I tried to control behaviors,
adjust attitudes,
do good by the force of will.
But, deep down, it was always the same struggle.
Because the root remained the same.
And it was at that point that something began to make sense:
true freedom is not born from man.
It does not come from decision,
nor from discipline,
nor from knowledge.
It comes from a new life.
A life that is not produced by us…
but that can come to dwell in us.
And when this begins to happen, something changes in a way that is very simple, and at the same time profound:
the good stops being an effort…
and becomes an expression.
Not because the desire disappeared.
But because we are no longer alone inside ourselves.
There is a new direction.
A new voice.
A new presence.
And, little by little, that which before was natural, evil, begins to lose strength.
Not by repression…
but because something greater begins to occupy the space.
Maybe that is why true transformation does not begin when we try to be better…
But when we stop trusting ourselves as the source.
And begin to live from something that does not come from us.
This is what I began to see.
And, curiously, this is also what began to bring rest.
Because, for the first time,
change no longer depended on me.
Maybe the greatest freedom is not being able to choose everything…
But, finally, no longer needing to live alone inside oneself.
For those who want to go deeper, I leave below some passages of Scripture that shed light on this understanding:
