Are We Really Free?

Or Have We Just Become Very Good at Calling Our Chains "Choices"?

There are some questions in life that simply refuse to leave you alone. You try distracting yourself. You watch a movie. You scroll through Instagram. You eat biryani. You even convince yourself, "Bas yaar, enough philosophy for today." And then, when you least expect it, the question quietly comes back, sits beside you, and smiles. "Are you really free?"

I don't know why this question troubles me so much. Maybe because of certain things that have happened in my own life. Maybe because every choice I have made has given me something beautiful while taking away something equally precious. People often say, "Follow your heart." Nobody tells you that the heart also comes with terms and conditions. The moment you choose one road, a hundred others disappear forever. Then life has the audacity to ask, "Happy?" Happy? Brother, I am still reading the user manual.

So what does it actually mean to be free? People often confuse freedom with doing whatever they want. But I don't think that's freedom at all. If someone forces you to perform an action, you are not free. If fear controls your decisions, are you free? If money dictates your choices, are you free? If family expectations decide your future before you even discover yourself, are you free? If society has already written the definition of success for you, then where exactly is freedom hiding?

Then comes another fascinating word....will. What is the will? Many philosophers describe it as the deepest driving force within us, the instinct that pushes us toward self-preservation, survival, values, ideologies, dreams, ambitions, and purpose. Animals struggle to survive. They rarely choose death willingly. Human beings, however, are different. We can sacrifice ourselves for another person. We can lay down our lives for justice, for love, for faith, or for an idea. That ability makes us uniquely human. But it also raises an uncomfortable question: if we are capable of such extraordinary freedom, why do we so often feel trapped?

And then something happened that made this entire debate deeply personal for me. I rarely remember my dreams. In fact, most of them disappear the moment I wake up. But this one refused to leave me. It has stayed with me ever since, almost as if it wanted to teach me something that no philosophy book ever could.

In the dream, my mother had prepared sweets especially for me. Not because there was a festival, not because there were guests, but simply because she loved me. I still remember the happiness I felt. It was that innocent happiness a child feels when his mother says, "These are for you." At that moment I felt like the richest person in the world.

Then something strange happened. One of my relatives came, took away all the sweets, hid them somewhere, and finished them all. I stood there unable to understand what had just happened. It was not the sweets that hurt me. If someone had asked me, I would have happily shared them. The pain was somewhere else. The love that my mother had prepared for me never reached me. It was intercepted. It was taken away before it could become mine.

The pain was so intense that I started crying. Not ordinary crying, but the kind that comes from somewhere very deep inside. In the dream I even got into a physical fight. I fought with everything I had. Yet even after fighting, I felt empty. Fighting could not bring back the love that had been lost. Once that moment had passed, it could never return.

When I woke up, I realised that perhaps the dream was never about sweets at all. It was about free will. ooo Hello! Since this topic is there soo I am trying to connect....... Every person in that dream exercised freedom. My mother freely chose to love. My relative freely chose to take away what was never his. I freely chose to fight. Three different freedoms collided, yet only one person's love remained incomplete. That is what troubles me. We celebrate freedom as though it automatically produces goodness. But freedom can also stand between love and the one for whom that love was intended.

Maybe that is why rules exist......not because freedom is bad, but because freedom without responsibility wounds another person's humanity. Yet I also struggle here. The rules we have today often feel like cages rather than guides. They protect systems before they protect people. They preserve order but sometimes suffocate love itself. And then I ask myself: are these really the rules we need? Or have we become so attached to structures that we have forgotten why rules existed in the first place? Perhaps some rules deserve to be broken......not because we reject order, but because we want love to reach the person for whom it was meant.

Plato believed that the human soul has three parts: reason, spirit, and appetite. Imagine them as three roommates sharing one tiny apartment. Reason keeps saying, "Save money." Appetite says, "Order one more shawarma." Spirit stands between them shouting, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" According to Plato, freedom is not allowing appetite to rule us. Freedom exists when reason and spirit work together to guide our desires. It is a beautiful theory. But try explaining that to yourself at two in the morning while finishing an entire packet of chips and promising that tomorrow you will become a disciplined person. Plato clearly underestimated midnight cravings.

Then Aristotle arrived and made the question even more dangerous. He argued that individual actions become habits, habits become character, and character shapes our destiny. Every virtuous or vicious person is formed through repeated choices. He also believed that a human being has the power both to act and not to act, provided that the circumstances are understood. Yet Aristotle leaves us with a question that has haunted me ever since I first read him. Are today's decisions truly free, or are they simply the result of all the choices we made yesterday? If today's choices are influenced by yesterday's habits, and yesterday's habits were influenced by even earlier experiences, then where did the first genuinely free decision come from? Aristotle insists that "man is the father of his actions," refusing to let us blame everything on circumstances. But I still wonder whether my choices belong to me or whether they are echoes of decisions I never consciously made.

Kant takes us into an entirely different world. For him, the human will is autonomous. It is a thing in itself, independent of observation. According to Kant, morality is only possible if freedom is real. If our actions are completely determined, then praising virtue or condemning evil becomes meaningless. I desperately want Kant to be right. Because if freedom does not exist, then love becomes chemistry, sacrifice becomes biology, forgiveness becomes a neurological accident, and courage is reduced to electrical signals inside the brain. Something deep within me refuses to accept that.

And then Schopenhauer enters the room like someone determined to ruin everybody's mood. He argues that beneath everything lies a blind and relentless will—a force that never stops pushing us. It does not ask whether we are tired. It simply keeps moving. We satisfy one desire only to discover another waiting patiently behind it. We achieve one dream, and immediately another appears. We seek recognition, success, love, peace, another degree, another promotion, another dream. The will never becomes exhausted. Only we do.

As if that was not enough, Nietzsche arrives laughing at everyone. He says life is driven by the will to power. Not merely power over others, but the power to overcome oneself. The courage to create new values. The strength to become who you truly are. It sounds inspiring until you realize how painful becoming yourself actually is. Because the moment you become your authentic self, someone somewhere becomes disappointed that you did not become the version they had imagined for you.

Then Sartre quietly whispers one of the most frightening sentences ever written: "Human beings are condemned to be free." Notice the word.........condemned. Not blessed. Not rewarded. Condemned. Every choice belongs to you, and every consequence arrives with it. Nobody can make your decisions for you, and nobody can carry your regrets either. Honestly, I think Sartre understood adulthood before adulthood even existed. And this is where philosophy becomes fascinating. Every philosopher looks at the same human being and says, "I know what is driving him." But do they? Aristotle speaks of habits. Kant speaks of duty. Schopenhauer speaks of blind will. Nietzsche speaks of power. Plato speaks of the soul. Yet I keep wondering whether the human person is always much bigger than every philosophy ever written.

Some of my companions once joked that free will exists only in the very first decision. After that, everything becomes conditioning. We all laughed. But later, while lying awake at night, I realized the joke was not funny anymore. You choose a vocation, and then the vocation slowly begins choosing you. You choose a career, and then the career dictates your schedule. You choose to love someone, and suddenly your entire world revolves around that decision. One free choice, followed by thousands of consequences. Freedom starts looking suspiciously like responsibility wearing a nice shirt.

This question matters to me because it touches every aspect of life. It matters to the rich, the poor, and the middle class. Perhaps it affects the middle class the most because every decision carries enormous consequences. We all choose what seems good for ourselves or for others, but later we begin wondering whether those choices were truly good or later you realize that you should act with freedom now btu you cannot and you are trapped..... For a moment, let us leave God out of the discussion. Just for a while. Think honestly. Are we really free?

I know one thing for certain. We are free enough to sacrifice ourselves for another person. We are free enough to love someone beyond calculation. We are free enough to stand for justice. Yet if that is true, another question refuses to leave me. If human beings are truly free, why do so many remain silent when injustice stands right before them? If the will naturally seeks the good, why is goodness so difficult? Why do ordinary people choose comfort over courage? Why does fear so often defeat conscience?

Sometimes I feel this world is like a giant bowl of soup filled with contradictions, confusion, and endless exceptions. Every philosopher offers a theory. Every theory explains something beautifully. Yet no single theory explains everything. Perhaps that is why the debate between freedom and will has survived for thousands of years and will continue long after we are gone.

Maybe freedom is not the absence of influence. Maybe freedom is what remains after every influence has finished speaking. Society speaks. Parents speak. Religion speaks. Fear speaks. Love speaks. Memories speak. Trauma speaks. Expectations speak. But somewhere beneath all those voices there remains one quiet whisper asking only one question: "Now... what do you choose?"

Perhaps that whisper is free will. Or perhaps it is the greatest illusion humanity has ever believed. I honestly do not know. And maybe philosophy was never meant to remove the mystery. Maybe philosophy exists so that we never stop living the question.

Life is funny. It tells you, "Choose freely," and then sends you the bill for every choice you make. No refunds. No exchanges. No customer care. Only experience.

Yet despite all my doubts, despite all the philosophers arguing across centuries, despite all the confusion that keeps me awake at night, I still believe this: we are free enough to love, free enough to forgive, free enough to sacrifice, and free enough to become slightly better than we were yesterday. Perhaps that small freedom is all humanity has ever needed.

So let me leave you with the question that refuses to leave me.

If I am not free, then who exactly is living my life?

And if I am free... what exactly am I waiting for?

Perhaps free will is not simply the freedom to choose. Perhaps it is the responsibility to ensure that our choices allow another person's love, dignity, and humanity to flourish. If my freedom crushes yours, is it still freedom? Or is it merely another form of power disguised as liberty?

Rohan Brahmane SJ -Student of Philosophy