Thomas Aquinas once said - “The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.”

Ask yourself - do you truly believe that you govern all of your own actions? Is your conscious, personal will so strongly developed that every action and decision you make is a direct embodiment of your truest intentions, insofar as they align with your personal goals, standards, and values?

The answer to these questions for most people (if they are being honest) would be no. The answer for myself, is no.

The truth is, that there are so many different factors of influence at play beneath the surface of our awareness that most of our actions are the direct consequence of forces other than our own personal will. And it is not only our actions which are largely dictated by alternative influences, but our thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions too.

Until we can shine the light of our consciousness onto these alternative influences and drivers of our thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, and behaviours - and thus override them - we cannot claim to be free. And until we are free, we simply cannot live a life which is fully aligned with our personal values, goals, and standards for proper conduct and morality. Until we are free, we live our lives as slaves to invisible masters, destined for vague but ever-present feelings of unfulfillment, meaninglessness, impotency and frustration.

The purpose of this weeks’ newsletter is to highlight these insidious forces which dictate your life from the shadows, and to help you to overcome them to live a life of greater freedom.

The forces beneath the surface

Social conditioning

Whether we realise it or not, we are all shaped by our environment. Born into societies with defined norms, we internalise expectations to satisfy our need to belong, fearing isolation.

These norms dictate surface-level choices—like fashion or music—but also shape more fundamental aspects of our lives, from career paths to core beliefs about Self, God, and Reality. In the modern West, materialism and atheism dominate, steering people away from spiritual values like love and peace toward money, possessions, and social validation.

As a result, we live on autopilot, chasing what we’ve been taught to value rather than what truly matters to us—like pigs chasing a carrot on a stick, trapped in conditioned beliefs and destined for unfulfillment.

Economic and social systems

Whether we like it or not, we exist within capitalism and consumerism. To survive, we must work and make money—leading many to become slaves to it.

Billionaires and politicians at the top profit of these systems from the energy of those at the bottom, who work simply to survive—to afford food and shelter. If they quit a job they despise, they would face hunger and cold. They never chose this system, yet they exhaust themselves to stay afloat in it while the elite sit on mountains of wealth.

How can those who work just to survive be considered free? They are bound to a system that serves those who profit most from it. Even those with financial comfort remain trapped, conditioned to chase more—more money, more possessions, more “success.”

This isn’t freedom. It’s a cycle of control disguised as choice.

Information control

Most people would be shocked to learn the degree to which information is controlled in the West. Mainstream media serves as a tool for the most powerful entities to control public narrative, while social media platforms censor and remove large numbers of posts which oppose the interests of the powerful in the name of “violating their terms”.

The reality of many world events and circumstances are carefully twisted and often completely hidden by media outlets to prevent the public from seeing the truth. We are fed the information - and the version of that information - that the powerful want us to be fed, and deprived of that which they want to deprive us of.

As a result, most people live totally unaware of disturbing truths that would doubtless change their behaviour and beliefs if they knew them. Their perception is controlled, and their beliefs and behaviours shaped without them even knowing.

Drive to comfort, pleasure and distraction

Modern society acts as a machine to satisfy our lower drives and appetites. Instead of pursuing Truth and the best version of ourselves, we content ourselves with cheap dopamine through mindless distraction and entertainment.

We become slaves to our lower impulses, and the modern world is designed to make it that way. We are all addicted to dopamine thanks to tech companies. We are in a constant battle for our attention - our most valuable resource.

We are weakened into further addictions to comfort. Our desires and impulses drive us rather than our highest will, and our fear prevents us from living as fully as we could.

What part of this sounds anything like freedom?

Blue pill or red pill

Now that some of the restrictors of your freedom have been revealed, you have a choice.

Just like Neo in the Matrix, we all must choose: freedom or enslavement; truth or illusion; consciousness or unconsciousness. Freedom, truth and consciousness all go hand in hand, because freedom is only possible when you are conscious of truth.

The truth is that most of us are not free. We can either develop our consciousness of this truth, and strive for freedom (red pill), or choose to ignore it, and slip back into a life of unconscious enslavement under the illusion of freedom (blue pill).

Choosing the red pill is difficult, but worthwhile and fulfilling - only through freedom can you live a life in which you live consciously and intentionally in service of your own goals and values. It will require much effort and discomfort, but the result is meaning, purpose, freedom and fulfilment.

Alternatively, if you choose the blue pill, your life may be easier, but you will suffer from a lack of meaning and fulfilment. Such a life is hollow and shallow. It holds no substance. Every action is a desperate grasping at cheap pleasure, comfort, or distraction from the fact that the life you are living is not truly yours.

Moving towards greater freedom

Assuming that you choose the red pill, let’s consider what must be done to live a life of greater freedom. The fundamental process which must take place is the undoing of your conditioning.

The fact of conditioning applies to all four of the previously laid out forces beneath the surface - we are conditioned by societal norms and expectations; we are conditioned by the capitalist and consumerist systems; we are conditioned by both mainstream and social media to hold false perceptions and beliefs; we are conditioned to seek pleasure, comfort and distraction over challenges, discomfort and truth.

Until we can override this mental conditioning and free ourselves from these mental cages, we can never be free.

So how can we begin to undo our conditioning?

Develop consciousness - Conditioning is unconscious and automatic. That’s what makes it conditioning - we act out our conditioning because we are unaware it even exists. Only through heightened consciousness can you choose to override your conditioning in favour of your personal will.

Relentless self-observation - ****Constantly be watching yourself. Observe your thoughts. Notice your internal reactions to things - both mental and emotional. Ask yourself why they are happening and where they are coming from. When you consciously observe your thoughts and feelings, you can then choose whether to further energise them, or whether to act them out.

Question everything - you think you know. Don’t just take things for granted. All your beliefs, opinions and perceptions. Ask yourself are they really true, and trace back where they originated from. Don’t let anything slide.

Ensure that your worldview is a product of your own making - not a product of anyone or anything from outside of you.

As you work on making these things second nature, and your consciousness begins to increase, there are a few more things you can do:

Seek Truth and balanced objectivity - Reject all your biases. Abandon all dogma and ideology. Depolarise and centralise yourself. Don’t pick sides - blue or red, right or left. Seek Truth, balance and objectivity over all else.

Do hard things, face hard truths - Reject ease and comfort. Seek out challenge and difficulty. Embrace discomfort by repeatedly pushing past your comfort zone. Face the truth and accept it, even when it’s ugly. Comfort and illusion are the antitheses of freedom.

Reclaim attention - Win the battle against the tech companies for your attention. When you feel the pull to scroll, become stronger than the urge and direct your attention into something that actually serves you. Rewire your dopamine system to seek long-term rewards from genuine effort, over short-term gratification from zero effort.

Awaken higher nature - Establish your values and morals, and live by them. Embody them. Set goals and pursue them. Ensure that your action is driven by your own will which is defined by these three things. Develop and inner compass and follow it unyieldingly.

Practises to aid you

Meditation, journaling and reading are the practices I have found most beneficial in undoing my own conditioning. Meditate to increase consciousness; journal to explore the workings of your mind and unpack your perceptions, thoughts, feelings and beliefs; read to expose yourself to new perspectives and practise objective, non-dogmatic learning.

Final note

As I stated at the beginning, I am very much still in the process of undoing my conditioning and working toward greater freedom. I have by no means mastered the forces which still influence me beneath the surface of my awareness. Sometimes I am even fully aware of these forces and I succumb to them anyway. Freedom is a life-long commitment, and it only comes even remotely into the realm of possibility by making the commitment. I cannot claim to be fully free or fully conscious (probably no one can), but I am certainly a lot more free and conscious than I once was. If you do the work laid out in this newsletter, you too can begin to increase your levels of freedom. Maybe you already have. If it’s your first time considering these ideas, or if you’ve been on this train a while, either way, I’m glad to have you on this journey with me. If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much. Onwards and upwards together.