The Illusion of Freedom

Model and words by Unsocial Radioactive Kid
Photography by Kaloyan Grozev

My life had turned upside down. Since my last submission, I changed my job drastically, got married, wrote a book, and have already changed two countries. I just moved to the USA from Germany a month ago and am trying to figure out my new life routine here.

I miss my lovely, cozy Sofia, and I’m glad I had some time to do a few last shots before I left the country and the continent. All these life changes, and then writing a book, made me think about a ton of things — but I must acknowledge that what was on the surface of every thought or feeling was me thinking and wondering about freedom — what it is to me and how it transcends time, evolving into new perceptions.

The concept of freedom has been a significant cultural agenda over time. In books and movies, revolutions and wars, relationships and social institutions — humans are drawn to striving and fighting for freedom. But what is freedom? Isn’t it something given to most modern men by design? Various dictionaries define freedom as ‘the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants’; ‘the power of self-determination attributed to the will; the quality of being independent of fate or necessity’; ‘the state of being unrestricted and able to move easily’; ‘the state of not being subject to or affected by (something undesirable)’, etc.

The idea of freedom occupies an important place in Jean Paul Sartre’s philosophy (one of my forever favourite authors), as it plays a significant role in his existentialism. He states that Man is condemned to be free. Man is born free, as he also holds that our existence is absolutely free, and it consists in developing our life in full freedom — which brings responsibility. As man is incomplete, man has possibility, and he has the power of choice. Thus, freedom is not a being; it is the nothingness of being. “A man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.” The concept of freedom may also be linked to the idea of lightness of life, often perceived as an illusion — a positive simulacrum. The lightness of choices and responsibilities. The lightness of being.

“With any freedom comes a cost and consequence. Or shall I say — obligation? But doesn’t obligation contradict the concept of freedom?”

“The heaviest of burdens crushes us; we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man’s body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?” — A wonderful, thought-provoking quote from Milan Kundera, from the book “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”.

Kundera uses Friedrich Nietzsche’s doctrine of the Eternal Return to illustrate lightness. Eternal Return dictates that all things in existence recur over and over again for all eternity. This is to say that human history is a predetermined circle without progress — the same events arising perpetually and doomed never to alter or to improve. Existence is thus weighty because it stands fixed in an infinite cycle. “Life which disappears once and for all, which does not return,” writes Kundera, is “without weight… and whether it was horrible, beautiful, or sublime… means nothing.” Each life is insignificant; every decision does not matter. Since decisions do not matter, they are “light”: they do not tie us down. However, at the same time, the insignificance of our decisions — our lives, our being — is unbearable. Hence, “the unbearable lightness of being.” On the other hand, eternal existence would demand of us strict adherence to prescripted rules and laws — a sense of duty and rigorous morality.

“Today, we live in a world where choices are endless but meaning feels increasingly diluted.”

Is Kundera’s view of ‘lightness’ still relevant in our hyper-connected world? You, of course, may look at it differently. The insignificance of all turns it into lightness. Where there’s lightness, there’s freedom. Is there an ultimate freedom, though? As I see it, with any freedom comes a cost and consequence. Or shall I say — obligation? An obligation to set the vector for your right of freedom — to where it is going to take you. But doesn’t obligation contradict the concept of freedom?

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Kundera equates lightness with freedom — the absence of obligation, consequence, and historical weight — but also exposes its existential emptiness. Today, we live in a world where choices are endless but meaning feels increasingly diluted, where the lightness of being has arguably become the default condition. Social media grants the illusion of freedom and identity fluidity, yet it fosters detachment, transience, and a craving for external validation. In this hyper-connected reality, Kundera’s “lightness” is no longer a philosophical metaphor alone — it’s a lived experience, and perhaps an unbearable one still.

“Social media grants the illusion of freedom and identity fluidity, yet it fosters detachment, transience, and a craving for external validation.”

Eternal lightness of the sacred burdens

The strive towards the light,
With singing verdins.
Revenge is sweet but so is sorrow —
To be pinned down by it
Till comes tomorrow.

The hero always finds a foe to combat.
A hostile is the truth that pokes and worrits.
We run or standstill fighting boredom —
To die a hero or remain a coward.

The choice is a sharp lance
That may turn inward.
The courage may turn fool —
And evil comes as thy Lord.

To fly, you need to learn to fall first.
To lie, you must forget what’s in the true core.
Today we needn’t wars or suffer;
Instead of prayer, we would chant the same chord:
The loser is the one who didn’t sharpen his sword.