Freedom, Desire, and the Mirage of Power

There’s a kind of freedom that’s easy to sell.
It looks like confidence.
It sounds like influence.
It promises strength, wealth, admiration, and endless choice.
But it’s a mirage.

False liberators know how to speak to pain.
They speak to young men:
You’ve been ignored. You’re not wanted. You’re powerless.
Take what you deserve. Be feared, not overlooked. Be served.
It sounds like freedom,
but it’s a script built on resentment and domination.

They speak to young women through manipulation:
Find the one with low self-esteem. Make her feel special.
Tell her what she needs to hear until she can’t imagine life without you.
Then use her.
Control dressed up as love.
Affection twisted into a weapon.

This isn’t freedom.
It’s coercion wrapped in charm.
And it works—because the hunger is real.
We want to be seen,
wanted,
chosen,
strong.
We ache for connection, for purpose, for love.

But desire alone can’t lead us home.
Desire, untethered from what is good,
becomes a chain.
And the freedom we chase becomes the prison we live in.

Real freedom isn’t power over others.
It isn’t endless choices.
It’s the ability to want what is good,
and to live into it without fear.

We all carry wounds.
We all long to matter.
But using others to soothe our own ache
only deepens it.

There is another freedom.
It doesn’t come from asserting control.
It comes from being released.

Free from the need to prove.
Free from the fear of rejection.
Free from the illusion that dominance heals pain.
Free to choose love over power.
Faithfulness over conquest.
Grace over performance.

Freedom Sellers promise a kingdom
built on fear, flattery, and force.

But there is another way—
a freedom that begins not in control,
but in surrender.
Not in taking,
but in being found.