My life is currently very constrained. I am occupied with looking after our 18-month old daughter. When she is awake, I am fully occupied; when she is asleep, I am on call and cannot go further than the effective range of the baby monitor.
As a baby-toddler-child, her needs are necessarily more important than my wants and contingently more important than my needs (because I can adapt and look after myself but she cannot), which means that in all but the most exceptional cases our lives are determined in each moment by what is best for her, which is as it should be.
I am, in effect, her slave. If I focus on this, and contrast it with the comparative freedom of others, it starts to chafe.
Why is everyone else free to do what is good for them (at cost to me), whilst I must always do what is good for someone else (at cost to me)?
It isn’t an unusual reaction to being in this situation. I read articles in newspapers that say things like: ‘You feel trapped as a mother because you are.’ I recognise and share in this simple truth, because there is no denying the truth of it. But I do what I can to work against its detrimental effects.
Epictetus has a line: ‘Everything has two handles: one by which it may be borne, another by which it cannot.’ Picture a two-handled cooking pan in a fire: one handle in the fire and the other out. Epictetus advises us to pick things up by the right handle or else we will be burned.
As with all applications of philosophical understanding: once you have clearly perceived the truth of the situation, choosing how to respond to it is a matter of governing yourself by good reason. In this case, as with many others, it is a matter of doing what you can to bring your attention to focus on what matters.
If I grasp the handle ‘I am a slave; I have lost everything of myself to the service of others, and yet I am dismissed as worthless’ I will burn with the burden and injustice of it all. But if I grasp the handle ‘I am doing what is right for my child; this is the time when I can and must do most good for my child, who is inestimably precious, so why would I not give everything I can to this time?’, I will bear it contentedly.
Some time ago, when I was on one of those long lonely walks where the baby needed a sleep and the only option was to keep walking, I fell into composing some lines to this effect:
Caregiver living
Alone in the strongest bond
Alone but not free.
Nothing comes for free
Fruits come from trees come from seeds
A life from a life.
Life needs light and warmth
To be the source of that light
Or not, is my choice.
I’m not a poet, but I do find that structured composed lines like this have a way of being more memorable than loose thoughts. (Maxims and aphorisms are similar.) And the point is not so much the quality of the lines as the quality of the effect that they have on me. I repeat them to myself, and it has the effect of bringing my attention back to what matters. In that, I find I have everything I need.
If you apply your understanding properly you will recognise how much freedom you have and this is the ultimate condition to be aimed at.
Related posts: Attend to What Matters: Introduction, Willpower, Fear
Read more: Think Well, Live Well: A Free Introduction to Philosophy
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