The Prison of Independence

Posted by Julie Hersh on 16 January 2011 | 0 Comments

Tags: freedom, Jonathan Franzen, 127 Hours, independence,

While simultaneously reading Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom and watching 127 Hours this weekend, I had a light bulb moment. Freedom isn’t synonymous with independence. My old definition of freedom presupposed individual needs and ideas ruled paramount, no compromises, an unfettered view of personal reality. Now I’m not so sure.

I sometimes hike by myself, a point of contention between my 24-7-blackberry-IPAD-iphone-back up phone-connected husband and I. When Aron Ralston (played by James Franco) filled his water bottle, grabbed a Gatorade, snacks and raced out of the throbbing city, he had me. For some, a grueling hike in an unpeopled place, ALONE sounds like torture. For others, alone and submerged in nature is the best receptor for our souls. When Franco stood on the butte and looked for miles seeing no one, when he lovingly touched the rocks and admired the light, he transported me to my own hikes in the Pecos Wilderness. Some of us need to disconnect to connect to something larger than our own lives.

The problem with being disconnected is that if something goes wrong, as Aron discovered, one lacks a lifeline. With his hand pinned beneath the rock, Aron realizes his independence isn’t free. My whole life has led me to this rock, he muses. Being without ties led him to life-threatening knot. What frees him? A desire for human connection. A connection to not only his unborn, but his yet to be conceived son.  

In Jonathan’s Franzen’s book Freedom, all the characters succumb to their individual desires in search of personal freedom, yet they all seem genuinely miserable. I recommended this book for my bookclub and I know they’re going to skewer me. Franzen’s prose seduces me, but his book seems to eschew any form of real connection between people. Compromise leads to depression and a hollow life, lust trumps friendship, overpopulation is destroying the planet, all Republicans are charmingly deceitful and all humans are, deep down, despicable and stupid. If his characters got stuck between a rock and a hard place, they’d die. They lack the human connection to help them transcend an impossible situation.  

In my own experience, people are more multi-faceted than Franzen presents. We all do things that are selfish and stupid, but at other moments we accomplish miraculous feats because we love each other. Sometimes those sacrifices take us to a new reality, better than we ever imagined. 127 Hours captures that paradox. Freedom gets trapped in the prison of its own negative perception.

In my talks, I often leave listeners with the challenge to reach out to each other. I truly believe a hand on the shoulder or a kind word in the right moment can save a life. These human actions can pull a person from isolation to inclusion. Isolation is one of the critical components suicide, the others being a feeling of being a burden on the world and a high tolerance for pain according to Thomas Joiner in his book Why Do People Die by Suicide? That human connection is sometimes not enough to prevent suicide, but it is always worth a try.

When I alone hike now, I always leave a note and only go on low risk trails that I’ve hiked before. A friend bought me an emergency GPS locator, which I’ve never used. This summer, I’ll give it a try. Being 50, I’m not sure a vision of a future unborn child would drive me to whittle off my arm. I can still experience the mountaintop with a gadget in my backpack. There’s an odd sense of freedom in making that compromise. A concession of connection is well worth the dent in my independence.