Be the Most Individual Individual You Can Be

And be free no matter what! (DN 4.7)

Chapter 4.7
The Traits of a Free People:
Individualism

Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren't any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn't be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life's challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person.

—R. Buckminster Fuller

As I mentioned earlier in this chapter, culture is, generally speaking, an organic phenomenon. It is not designed—it emerges. It is the spontaneous aggregation of behaviors, over time, into traditions, practices, traits, norms, and beliefs. This is a process and phenomenon that we must respect. Emergent order is one of the most human things there is.

But we here are doing something that is rare, if not unique: we are creating a nation from scratch. Needless to say, emergent order will play a role in what that nation becomes, but there is also an element of choice involved.

There is also an element of choice involved in the development of character. Choice by the individual. Choices made by his or her parents. Nature plays a role in what we are, but character development can be heavily guided by nurture and free will too.

Ultimately, the character of a nation depends on the character of its individual members. And so we are asking, in this chapter, what character should we choose to nurture in ourselves? Along the way, many of you have contributed helpfully to that discussion.

Freedom begins with the individual

One theme that keeps popping up: Freedom comes from within.

The core definition of the word “freedom” is something like the absence of external coercion. If no one is trespassing against your body, your property, or your personal agency, then you are free. We here are acutely aware that we are not free in this way, and so we tend to focus on the coercion we are experiencing from external sources—government, et al. And rightly so.

Yet we are also realizing a few other important things:

First, even if all external coercion were to vanish, you still might be in a prison of your own making. You could be enslaved to an addiction, for example. Or to worry and fear. There are plenty of prisons we can create for ourselves.

Second, it is possible to make yourself more free in spite of external oppression. In fact, libertarian and one-time presidential candidate Harry Browne wrote a whole book on the subject. There are two main areas in which one can make oneself more free in this way, which we might call practical and personal.

There are practical methods that one can use to mitigate the degree to which one is impacted by external coercion. Browne lays these out in detail in his book.

And there are many ways that we can free ourselves on a personal level…

Letting go of thoughts or emotions that imprison us. Escaping addiction. Choosing to be more disciplined and to embody virtues rather than deficiencies.

Realizing, as Viktor Frankl did in the most horrifying of circumstances, that no matter what happens, you still have your own personal agency: you can still choose how you react to things. (I don’t care, I’m still free—you can’t take the sky from me.)

Choosing to feel free no matter what. (One person whose efforts in this regard I very much admire is fellow Substacker

Jacqueline Rendell

. She is working hard to cultivate and express a feeling of freedom no matter what the circumstances.)

There is so much more to say on this subject (and feel free to say it in the comments!), but we can simply bottom-line it for now:

We, as individual members of a nation of sovereign beings, ARE free.

Our natural state is one of freedom. Freedom is our birthright.

Therefore, we know and declare that we are free.

Now, it is incumbent upon each of us to make himself or herself as free as we possibly can…from the inside out.

Individualism begins with the individual

One of the loveliest things about working in the freedom movement is the uniqueness of the people in, and adjacent to, that movement. Those who yearn for freedom tend to be really individualistic individuals. People who aren’t afraid to let their freak flag fly a bit.

I admire that very much.

The ultra-social nature of our species has proven to be a great advantage, but it has numerous drawbacks and dark sides as well: Stultifying enforcement of sameness. Shocking conformity. Social proof. Toxic collectivism, and all its attendant horrors.

Philosophically, our movement is individualist: in order for classical-liberal principles to make any sense at all, the individual must be the fundamental unit of moral concern. But we also tend to be fairly individualistic. And that is a good thing.

Other types of people are drawn to collectivist movements. As Eric Hoffer notes in The True Believer, some people really do “crave to dissolve their spoiled, meaningless selves in some soul-stirring spectacular communal undertaking.”

Our distributed nation is a shared project, but we will always be individuals. We do not seek dissolution of ourselves. We seek the togetherness and effectiveness of community, not the homogenization of a blob.

Individuals move the world

The individuals who do big things, great things, are rarely conformist types. Unafraid of the scythe of conformity, they are the single daisy in a field of grass.

Doing great things generally requires courage…including the courage to swim against the tide of social opprobrium that inevitably greets anyone who steps outside the lowest common denominator. This courage is to be admired, rewarded, and embodied…not mocked, punished and shunned.

I believe that one of the traits to which we should aspire is the encouragement of individualism and uniqueness in our fellows, and its nurture in ourselves.

Be yourself. Celebrate that.

Let others be themselves and celebrate that too.

Be brave. Take a stand. Don’t fear the crowd.

You could cure cancer while rescuing a baby from a flood and someone will accuse you of contributing to overpopulation. You could sing the most beautiful song and someone will find fault. The crowd is filled with some pretty awful people, frankly. So forget the crowd and be you.

We might not all be able to move mountains with our every word and action. But we can at least have the courage to be fully ourselves. And to respect the same in others.

Individuals make everything

Every bit of productivity in the world boils down to human capital. At the root of it all always lie the thoughts, actions, and choices of individual human beings.

Nature grows the berries, but someone has to recognize their value and pick them. Every single job that is done requires ideas and labor. Even a robot must be conceived, designed, built, programmed, and maintained by individual people. Productivity is necessary for life.

Businesses are made up of individuals—of their minds and labor. Governments have nothing of their own, and must be parasitic upon the productivity of individuals.

Everyone needs things in order to survive and thrive. Some needs are material (food, money, shelter); some are not (love, sex, companionship). All of it comes from individuals.

There are only two ways to get what we need and want: persuasion or coercion.

I persuade you to buy my product, so you give me money. I persuaded my girlfriend that I would make a good mate, so we married.

The persuader makes. The persuader trades. The coercer takes rather than makes. He tricks rather than persuades. He extracts rather than trades.

The fully individual individual recognizes this. We know that “the group” does not have any will, thoughts, or abilities of its own. We know that nothing happens without individuals, and we respect that.

And we also understand that while charity can help people in the short run, the beneficial effects of productivity are far more durable, both to ourselves and others. And we respect that too.

The individual is alive

It is easy to feel overwhelmed.

It is easy to feel oppressed—especially since every single government on the planet is engaged in some degree or another of actual oppression.

It’s easy to feel unmoored in this crazy world, with white streaks slashing the air and endless lies slashing the mainstream airwaves.

But I encourage you to be strong, be happy, and experience the meaning in this quote from Ayn Rand:

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists…it is real…it is possible…it's yours.

You are alive, right now. Your life is a blessing and a gift.

You are a unique, irreplaceable, sovereign being. Remember that. Enjoy it.

And remember that we’ve got your back.

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I understand that many of you want to get to the solutions phase of this project—to the HOW of the distributed nation. I am working on mapping all that out, I assure you. In the meantime, understanding ourselves a little bit better is an important part of the process.

I could have written all of this behind the scenes and then published it all at once, but then I would not have had two benefits: time to work ideas out and YOUR INPUT. And your input has been beyond helpful. So please keep your thoughts coming.

And if you can afford $5 a month, please help keep me going. It’s just a cup of coffee for you, but it all adds up for me, allowing me to keep doing this. Thanks!

Cover page | Preface | Introduction 1 | Introduction 2 | Introduction 3 |

(Part I) Why: 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 1.10 | 1.11 | 1.12 | 1.13 | 1.14 | 1.15 | 1.16 | 1.17 | 1.18 | 1.19 | 1.20 | 1.21 |1.22

(Part II) What: 2.0 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 2.4 | 2.5 | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.8 | 2.9 | 2.10 I 2.11 | 2.12 | 2.13 | 2.14 | 2.15 | 2.16 | 2.17 | 2.XX | 2.18 | 2.19 | 2.20 | 2.21 | | Where: 3.0 | 3.1 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 3.4 | 3.5 | 3.6 | 3.7 | 3.8 | 3.9 | 3.10 | 3.11 | 3.12 | 3.13 || Who: 4.0 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 4.5 | 4.XX | 4.XY | 4.6 | 4.7