The price of freedom

Many young people have a dream of freelancing.

This is humane.

Because freedom means the right to choose:

Whether it is a red rose or a blue rose in life, you want it, and if you don't want it, you don't want it.

Civilization is of course great for the human community;

But for individual human beings, civilization feels suffocated at some point.

The more highly developed the civilization, the more its society resembles a tightly knit machine, and the workers (including capitalists and politicians) are like one "screw" after another in this machine.

When the machine begins to run at high speed, all kinds of large and small "screws" must be in place to cooperate with the high-speed operation of the machine.

In the process, the "screws" reap the rewards, but pay the "freedom".

From a probabilistic point of view, the certainty of survival is gained, but the choice of survival is lost.

The most able to explain the dialectical relationship between freedom and survival is actually the program of "wilderness survival".

Up to now, there are three types of "wilderness survival" programs on the market:

One is a survival program within 7 days, which is more of a celebrity show or survival teaching program.

After all, in the case of drinking water, normal people can rely on the fat stored in the body to resist for 7 days.

One is a survival program with a duration of about 20 days, which can often force an ordinary person to the limit of physiology, so it can test a person's comprehensive survival quality relatively comprehensively, such as "21 Days of Primitive Life".

One is a survival show that goes up 40 days, which requires contestants to be strong in all aspects of survival (from mind to skill) to survive in a long time, such as "Living Alone in the Wilderness".

Watching the last two survival programs, you can often see some of the core qualities of this intelligent creature:

1. Under the premise of relatively abundant survival resources, people retain more social attributes, such as morality, rituals, rules, etc.;

In the show "Living Alone in the Wilderness", before winter arrives, during the relatively abundant food stage, many contestants are willing to spend extra energy and time to do something that seems luxurious:

For example, a female player built a sauna for herself (sadly, she was later eliminated because she wasted too much physical strength), for example, a female player released a big fish because she could not eat enough food (sadly, she was later eliminated because of lack of food), for example, many players will spend a long time carving wood, making door numbers, and even making chess.

2. But when the survival resources are slowly in short supply, people show more animalistic side;

In 21 Days of Primitive Life and 40 Days of Primitive Life, because it is a double or multi-person team to survive, we can see that the more food shortages there are, the more aggressive the team members are.

In the first season of "40 Days of Primitive Life", during the period when food was at its most scarce, there were even all members voting to expel a group member, simply because the latter was not very social.

In other words, in fact, everyone tacitly expelled the "excess" team members to reduce food consumption.

If in a truly primitive society, this kind of behavior is no different from murder.

3. Only the real strong are likely to survive independently in the wilderness for a long time, and the strong here refers to the kind of strength that has no shortcomings;

The show "Living Alone in the Wilderness" is a single-player survival mode, and it is the most brutal "Russian roulette" survival mode:

Ten people compete, only the last one can take all the prize money, and the other 9 people must get out of the game with nothing.

The cruelest thing about this model is that you pray every day that you can hold on for one more day and then force yourself to be a little harder.

This cruelty is not only physical, but also psychological.

You know, almost every player who can persist for more than 60 days will lose more than 30% of his weight:

Building shelters, hunting, fending off beasts, and so on, as well as the loneliness and fear that come with the long dark nights, are the dual limits of a person's mental and physical challenges.

In this extreme environment, you can see a lot of survival details of the strong:

For example, a player will try to eat a certain part of the offal of the prey, because it contains ingredients to relieve depression;

For example, in order to hunt a bison weighing one ton, a player chooses to play kite tactics with a knife;

For example, a player is forced to eat a sick porcupine in order to ensure that he can hold on for a few more days.

。。。。。。

The closer you get to the physical and psychological limits, the more you can see the essence of what makes the strong strong:

It's a wildness that mixes wisdom, reason, and ruthlessness!

In shows like 40 Days of Primitive Life, you can see how individuals survive in organizations:

Judging from the results of the past three seasons, it is often not the most capable person who comes to the end, but the person who is most comfortable with team life to the end.

In fact, in the vast majority of cases, 30% or even 20% of the players contribute more than 70% of the survival resources, and a considerable number of them have achieved "lying win" without falling behind.

In shows like "Living Alone in the Wilderness," you can see how individuals face the vagaries and ruthlessness of the wilderness:

Even if you work hard enough and are smart enough, the harsh environment of the wilderness often makes you unable to hit any prey for more than ten days and forced out.

At this time, even if your heart is still holding on, your body has collapsed visible to the naked eye.

(After the body's fat is depleted, the hungry body begins to forcibly break down the muscles.) ）

It must be said that the cruelty created by this kind of program is close to the cruelty of fate itself!

Returning to the topic of freelancing, realistically speaking, there are indeed many cool places to be a freelancer:

For example, you no longer have to think about all kinds of intrigues in the workplace, and you no longer have to participate in many ridiculous and even ridiculous liquor boards;

For example, on a day when the sky is blue and cloudy, you can go to the park during other people's working hours to feel the charm of the season;

For example, you can take a trip that you can go on;

The biggest benefit of freelancers is that they can live a "misplaced" life:

You can look at the operation of the social machine in a relatively detached posture, and occasionally think about the value proposition of various types of "screws" from a philosophical point of view.

It's a very interesting perspective and a very interesting experience for people who like to think wildly.

But in order to get this perspective and experience, you also have to pay a "price":

You have to face the wilderness of survival alone.

Separated from the organization (enterprise), you never know how much you will benefit tomorrow, and you never know whether the tools (wisdom and skills) you have now will be able to withstand tomorrow's accidents.

This kind of psychological torture of facing all kinds of uncertainties all the time will accompany you throughout your life.

Unless you choose to give up.

If you're still young, from a certainty point of view, I personally strongly recommend that you choose the survival mode of hitting workers.

Although you lose a lot of freedom of choice, you have relatively easy to get the security of survival.

But if at some point in your life, you insist on choosing to live a life where "the world is so big that I want to see it", then I suggest you take a good look at this article first, and then ask yourself a serious question:

Once you choose to take this path, then when your age is old, then when your intelligence declines, your life will have a high probability of getting an ending like "The Old Man and the Sea".

When you're young, you seem to be able to defeat the sea countless times, but at some point in your destiny, the sea will eventually take away all your booty.

Freedom is a luxury, and if you're not strong enough right now, it's best to restrain this irrational desire.

I know that seeing this you will ask me a question:

If you are so pessimistic, why did you still choose this difficult road?

My answer is:

The free process is enough to counteract the end of freedom!