There are many types of financial freedom. The types of freedom are important, because our ideas about freedom put limits on our careers and implicitly sets a goal for our stash.
What kind of life do we want to live? How sure do we want to be that we reach it? And what are we ready to sacrifice to get there?
Hole-in-my-Soul Freedom
No Entrance is Grande Enough
(Opéra Garnier Paris 1867, le grand escalier)
The most consuming kind of freedom is, as we all know, the never-is-enough-freedom; the kind of freedom that cannot be achieved even when one stands on one of the terraces of one's Penthouse, alone, at 70 years of age, silently looking out on the streets below.
It's the Freedom of Imbalance, and an consuming one. The only capital on one's life's journey has been monetary.
Where does the hole in the soul that needs to be filled with kitsch, in its many disguises, come from? Perhaps very poor beginnings, or at least a belief that one's beginnings were very poor, and then life turns into an everlasting revenge on that poor beginning.
The hole in the soul wants more, at the expense of all other sides of life.
Do you feel that enough is never enough? Well, at some point the money is better spent on a shrink than on more brilliant furnishings.
Joneses Freedom
Another kind of freedom is the one that is lived in relation with the closest social group that happened to be at hand: childhood friends, colleagues, neighbours and influences from media, social or otherwise.
The common denominator is that the social group is not a conscious choice. They were just available, or imposed.
Freedom becomes what is reflected back from that unconsciously imposed social group: having that house, the two cars, better children, a better husband, more sanity, better work and better vacation. All in comparison to that group one happens to compare oneself with.
One becomes Ayn Rand's "Second Hander" who can only perceive oneself through the mirror of others.
Introvert Freedom
A solution to the Hole-in-the-Soul and the Joneses is to go 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
Cast all possible allure of the social mirror overboard. Let's not even be tempted to compare oneself with other people's social values, because, well, let's scrap social, shall we?
Especially easy if one is a stark introvert, who only needs the tiniest of external stimuli to be content.
Financial freedom now becomes easy. There really isn't much need for money at all, so financial independence is almost automatically achieved. There are very few interactions with other people where money could even be needed.
Freedom, at last.
As long as the hens survive the winter.
Hippie Freedom
Another kind of freedom is the one where one still participates in the arena of social life, but one is content with being a lot ... stranger than the Joneses.
Here one must put up with the scorn one will inevitable receive by not following the rules.
In many senses of the word, one is a hippie, a non-conformist, an epicurean; like the philosopher content with one's cheese.
Perhaps one can survive the social stigma by associating with something else, like the fire-moment, or some other kind of subculture, to build another, parallel but different pyramid of social recognition.
One is still connected with the world around, and one is not afraid to act in the arena, but in other ways, and not wanting to receive the usual kind of social recognition.
And with that parallel value pyramid, one will probably start to value new things in life, more independently; be it the small things, the long runs, the good food and the peculiar hobby.
Vagabond Freedom
Whatever holes we might have in our souls; they are not about keeping up with the Joneses or building the Grandest Staircase of them all.
We suspect that our freedom is that of the vagabond, the wanderer, with a touch of the introvert. We've never been so much for a having a house or a home in any normal sense of the word.
We like the luxury of rootlessness, and enjoy the feeling of slight alienation that travels bring; being that citizen who is at home everywhere and nowhere.
Do we always want to flee the arena? No, probably not. Our appetite of vagabondism will probably change over the year and over time. So sometimes we will revert to a kind of epicurean hippie-freedom, and certainly also try to act with the world around us, and then be ready to leave for our next journey.
So that mean that we will probably not aim for the minimal stash when trying to seize up our portfolio.
But even as one travels the world, one will discover, as the philosopher puts it, that one can really never truly escape oneself. Because one always has oneself in the saddle.
So where is the true limits of financial freedom?
As Seneca had it: What does it matter how much a man has laid up in his safe, or in his warehouse, how large are his flocks and how fat his dividends, if he covets his neighbour's property, and reckons, not his past gains, but his hopes of gains to come? Do you ask what is the proper limit to wealth? It is, first, to have what is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough.
Farewell.
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