A very simple sentence. Only eight words. A friend of mine heard it as the motto of an event. She considered this sentence important enough to use in one of her own presentations:
There is no True Life in Wrong Life.
That is how the sentence found its way to me. It seemed to be special to me. Consequently, I looked up where it originated. And, surprise, surprise, I found out it is from Jürgen Habermas. Well, I remember the “Non-Hierarchical Discourse” (“Herrschaftsfreie Diskurs“) and many more concepts I find important.
I spent quite some time thinking about this sentence. Both in a resigned and positive way. And I found numerous interpretations. And then I came up with a variation:
In False Life, Too, True Life is Possible!
Logically, this sounds like a contradiction. But that is not how I feel about it. Rather, I think my sentence might well complement the sentence by Habermas.
My sentence makes it clear what a huge challenge it is to lead a true life.
But: is that not also true to the same extent for freedom? Don’t you need a strong will and immense effort in order to “live in freedom”?
Consequently, I found a new definition of freedom for myself:
A person is free if he or she manages to live a true life even in a wrong life.
I will add this definition to my “Freedoms”.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
Loading ...