Polishing our Cages: The Illusion of Freedom

We often think we know what freedom means. It feels simple enough: free are those who live in their homes, able to carry on with life as they please. Not free are those behind bars, stuck between four walls, or in war struck places where choices are stripped away.

But is freedom always that clear?

I recently watched a film called The Free World, starring Boyd Holbrook and Elisabeth Moss and directed by Jason Lew. It made me think about whether freedom is as straightforward as it seems.

In the movie, Mo (Holbrook’s character) is a prisoner recently released and trying to rebuild his life. On paper, he’s “free.” Yet in reality, he remains trapped by stigma, defined by his conviction and unable to move forward, he is trapped by societal expectations and opinions. Ironically, when he was actually in prison, he found small ways to carve out inner freedom: refusing to let the world dictate his worth and holding onto his humanity despite confinement.

The story shows that you can be locked inside four walls and still discover freedom, and just as powerfully, you can walk around in the world yet remain unfree.

We like to think of freedom as one of life’s essentials. We have our houses, our cars, our endless choices. But sometimes I wonder: are we just polishing our cages, mistaking comfort for liberty? Have we become so busy maintaining the illusion of choice that we don’t see the walls around us?

This reminded me of a passage from Robert Wolff’s book Original Wisdom: Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing. In it, Wolff recalls accidentally calling an indigenous tribesman a “slave.” The tribesman’s reply always stayed me as one of the greatest responses to being called a slave:

“No, we don’t mind when others call us Sakai (slave). We look at the people who have to get up at a certain time in the morning, who have to pay for everything with money they earn by doing things for other people. They are constantly told what they can and cannot do. No, we do not mind when they call us slaves.”

That passage made me ask: are we really as free as we believe? It reminds us that while we enjoy privileges many can only dream of, true freedom may not depend on whether we live inside or outside four walls. It may lie in whether we live by our own rhythm, or at the mercy of systems and opinions that shape our choices. To be trapped isn’t always physical bars; it can be the mental bars created by other people’s judgments and expectations.

We call ourselves free because we can choose between careers, products, lifestyles. Yet those choices exist within an economic system that dictates the rhythm of our days. Some of the freedoms we cling to, like the endless consumer options we celebrate, may actually be the very things that hold us captive. The more we want, the more restless we become, forever chasing the next product and that next hit of dopamine.

Of course, I write this from a position of privilege. I’ve never lived in a war zone or in a place where options were scarce. To someone living with no choices at all, it may seem strange that someone like me is even questioning freedom. We are clearly free in many ways yes. But even in societies overflowing with options, it’s worth asking: are we really choosing how to live or just following a script written for us?

I don’t think freedom means abandoning responsibility or refusing to contribute to society. These are essentials for community and humanity. But I do think it means recognising the ways in which we are held down. Maybe freedom isn’t about breaking every cage, but about recognising which ones we’ve been polishing all along and choosing which ones we’re finally ready to leave behind.

And maybe it’s worth remembering that, despite the ways we are trapped, even in lands overflowing with “choices”, the greatest freedoms are already within reach: the simple gift of being in our homes, minding our own business, living authentically, pausing to admire a peaceful sky and enjoying life’s simple pleasures without apology.