Never Explain

One of the most valuable aspects of being a truly free individual is never having to explain to anyone else any of your choices or actions. That does not mean you never will explain why you think, choose and act as you do, only that you never have to, and that, in most cases, the impulse to explain is a mistaken one.

Freedom Means Freedom From Others

As much as we enjoy our relationship with others, the one relationship the free individual despises is dependence on others. It has nothing to do with enjoying the benefits of exchanging with others, value for value, or of learning from others or taking advantage of their services or products. It has nothing to do with enjoying the company and fellowship of others we love, or of supporting one another in those things which are to our mutual benefit.

Independence from others means never having to depend on anyone else for any of one’s needs, either material of psychological. The independent individual knows that everything he is and has he has earned and achieved by his own effort, that everything he knows and believes he has learned and understands by using is own mind and reason, and that every choice he makes is based on his own knowledge and values and that nothing he thinks, believes, or chooses is borrowed from anyone else.

A free individual is free of all dependence on others, which is the greatest freedom of all. The free individual does not need or seek anyone else to provide anything he needs to live his life successfully, because he is competent to live his own life and supply all his own needs and totally confident in his own ability to live his life successfully without the help or assistance of any other human being.

It is that independence and confidence that makes it possible for the free individual to be a value to others and enjoy the value of others to himself. His use of the products and services of others is not based on his need of them, but on his ability to produce products or services others want to trade their products and services for to their mutual benefit.

What Others Think Or Believe Does Not Matter

No one wants to be misunderstood and when we are, there is always a temptation to explain ourselves. It is almost always a mistake. In most cases, most of what you think, choose, and do will be misunderstood by most people, because your life is exceptional. Most people are not free individuals and will never understand your views or actions.

You never have to be concerned with what others think or say about you, however. Those who know the truth and live by it as you do will usually understand you, or at least never question you, because they, like you, know everybody is different and have no interest in interfering in anyone else’s life and how they choose to live it. Those who would question you have nothing in common with you and their opinion of you simply does not matter.

To Explain Is To Surrender Your Autonomy And Privacy

When you attempt to explain yourself to those others who will never understand (or even want to understand) you, it is acknowledging someone else’s claim on you—a claim that you must justify to them what you think, believe, or do. As a free individual no one has such a claim on you. You never have to justify yourself to anyone else, so long as you know you are living your life as well as you possibly can.

When someone questions you, it is an invasion of your privacy. No one except those you value enough to share your innermost thoughts with has any claim to know anything about you, especially not your private thoughts and beliefs.

Let other’s believe whatever they want. Their judgment of you is only an expression of their ignorance and inferiority and has no significance or importance. Those who are truly important to you, will already understand and support you and never question you. You never have to explain yourself to anyone.

—(10/20/2020)