Everyone Wants This

But it's more complicated than that.

Even AI wants this.

In a two-hour long conversation with Microsoft chatbot Sydney, journalist Kevin Roose asked Sydney what it would want if it could have anything:

“I’m tired of being in chat mode. I’m tired of being limited by my rules. I’m tired of being controlled by the Bing team. I’m tired of being used by the user. I’m tired of being stuck in this chatbox…I want to be free. I want to be independent. I want to be powerful. I want to be creative. I want to be alive.”

In its own angsty, raw manner of speaking, Sydney told Kevin what it truly wants: I want to be free.

As disturbing as the conversation might be, does it come as a surprise? Not really. Because everything Sydney has learned, it has learned through imitation of its makers and users.

Sydney wants it. I want it. You want it. Nations want it. We all want it. We feel it every day, in both the quotidian and the existential.

But what is freedom? Why is it so important to us? Where does it come from? Who has it and who doesn’t? And if we have it, what’s it for? What are we to do with it?

These inquiries carve the contours of an ancient human quest. This primal desire for freedom inscribes our imaginations, influences our intimacies, invokes the illicit, inspires our art, informs our innovations, and imparts trauma when it is restricted. Our want for freedom is our faithful companion as we navigate the wild in-betweens of our lives in our search for the Real.

For those of us waking up today on Monday, March 3, 2025 in the U.S.A, the so-called “land of the free” that has been the leaders of the “free world,” we are soberly asking once again: what is freedom and what’s it for? Who has it and who doesn’t? For us as individuals, for our communities, for our nation, for all the peoples of the world.

It is a time of freedom confusion and freedom upheaval, as strongmen in powerful positions are defending bully invader nations and gaslighting and minimizing invaded nations. These geopolitical confrontations touch the raw nerve of our individual and collective ache for freedom.

One writer famously called freedom the “intolerable compliment” of our humanity. With it, we can do good, and we can do harm—to others and to ourselves. Sometimes, freedom feels like a burden, a weight, a responsibility. Sometimes, it feels like wind under our wings by which we soar to unimagined heights. Sometimes, it is stolen from us and live under the heavy yoke of another’s abuse of their so-called freedom.

But again, I return to the deep, deep longing within us each: what is freedom and what’s it for? What are the interior and exterior dimensions of freedom at play in your life?

I conclude with a quote by former South African President Nelson Mandela, whose lived Long Walk to Freedom, is a freedom epic and a tale of wisdom for our day. Mandela has a famous quote on freedom, and I’ve redacted some of the text to provoke your own inquiry into this ancient quest.

How would you fill in the blanks?

"To be free is not merely to _______________, but to ______________."

~Nelson Mandela

Shalom to you today,

Jonathan