The problem of greed is a constant theme throughout humanity. But in modern times, when the capabilities of what humans can become are ever-expanding, it now seems as though we can truly have it all. And not only do we want it all, we demand it.

As R.J. Snell puts it, “ We want sex without fertility, food without calories, endless consumer goods without (observable) environmental degradation, religion without law, divorce without fault, mobility without loneliness, bodies without aging, entertainments without limits. We want our freedoms to be endless and without cost, allowing us to float free from now this to now that, casting off identities and responsibilities like old clothes discarded.”

We want everything and we want it now. And this hubristic greed is often our definition of freedom. But I am going to use the word freedom in a different way. Instead of freedom meaning access to an infinite amount of goods and capabilities, I will assert that freedom is in fact only found within the boundaries of the good. Freedom is not infinity, but instead a limitation of good possibilities found within the infinite. Freedom is where the existence of the good thrives.

When I think of the word freedom, a number of memories rush through my mind. I think of the day where my friends and I hiked up a mountain and we jumped into a waterfall. I think of the evening we sat on the hood of a car and watched the sun set behind the mountains. Each of us so unsure of what would happen next in our lives. But in that moment we found peace. I think of being a kid and spending hours on end with my closest friends, and then ending our day with my baseball bat cracking as it hit the whiffle ball. In these moments, I felt free from the anxieties brought on by life. But more importantly, I felt the joy of being with the ones who I love. I felt the freedom of being at ease with those who I care about, and enjoyed this planet in all of its different hours, and rested easy in the good of it all. This is freedom: To be bound by the good.

As I navigate what it means to be an adult, in a lot of ways, happiness becomes a thing of the past. We become bound by a different expectation. And it seems that the adult life is spent sacrificing happiness for financial security and consumer goods. For some, life becomes a hard task of facing societal greed. For others, it becomes a long and existentially painful question of learning how to navigate this civilization. But much of this pain appears to be unnecessary. There are other realities that we can live in. We do not have to live within the bounds of a broken society. We do not have to be a part of a society that is dependent on slave labor and sweatshops. We do not have to live in a society where much of our food comes from factory farming. We do not have to live in a society where its foundations are built on greed. We do not have to be bound by this. We can explore the freedom within other limitations.

In Josh Martin’s song Languid Beaks, he states that “In this piece I tried to explore some of the liberties that can come with specific types of limitation… by severely limiting the scope of my frequency range I was able to tune out some of the more overwhelming possibilities and focus on composition.”

In music, everything is within a kind of limitation. A song might be played in a certain mode or perhaps specific notes need to remain consonant. But these limitations are not actually limiting. In fact, they are often what give the musician the freedom to explore possibilities, because exploring the infinite would be impossible. All of existence requires this principle of limitation in order to exist. Everything needs the right measurement and attributes to add up to what it is. Like a dance, the planets are turning, life is growing, and we are living in this delicate balance and song.

In a society where we want an infinite amount of goods and possibilities, the idea of being bound by some sort of limitation often terrifies us. But in reality, we will always be bound by a limitation. The question is: By what limitation are we bound by? The more I begin to explore this question, the more I realize that there is no need to be bound by the restrictions of a broken society. True freedom is being bound to the good. And we have everything that we need in order to explore the limitations that give us freedom. We have people and this Earth. And so we need to find a new limitation that promotes the good and happiness of this world, existence, and the people around us. And like a dance, we can simply join.