What strikes me about this piece is your recognition that our capacity for faith is a muscle that atrophies without use. The modern condition has substituted algorithm-driven indecision for the steadfastness that defined previous generations- this mirrors what philosophers have called "the tyranny of choice" - where freedom without framework becomes its own prison. We rejected traditional constraints only to find ourselves constrained by indecision and paralysed by possibilities.
What faith teaches us is that obstacles test commitment rather than invalidate it. That character is forged through commitment, not preserved through hesitation. Perhaps what we need is not more options but the courage to close doors, not more information but the wisdom to act on what we already know to be true. There is profound strength in saying "this, and not that" and acknowledging our personal agency to choose between an action that can set us up to success versus one that self-sabotages us.
In Brazilian Jujitsu we called it 'paralysis by analyses' and it only starts once you learn enough to have to choose. At first you might only know one counter to each position so the choice is easy but once you know enough suddenly you might find yourself getting choked out not because you did the wrong thing but because you did nothing.
I wouldn't say there is one solution, everyone's body and mind works a bit different. One way to start getting over it is to be okay with doing the wrong thing as opposed to nothing. As you get more experience certain moves and styles work better for your mind and body and so you start drilling those techniques more and more and let others go, know what they are but not train them into muscle memory. So you start developing your own way and let muscle memory take over in a flow state. I'm sure other people would have other answers. I still struggle with it from time to time as I tend to be a perpetual over thinker of things.
I think people have had faith and doubt since the beginning of time. I'm sure personality traits and mental health play a huge role here.
It's easy to craft a story that explains everything through a single lens, but I doubt that is wise and accurate, especially in this case. You make many claims that are too simple, generalized, incomplete and, not to mention unfounded. There are grains of truth here (like the huge problems with dating apps, casual relationships, porn), but if you oversimplify, generalize, and exaggerate so much, I think your message becomes less valuable, not more.
You've also created a fake dichotomy that doesn't really exist in the world. Faith is not always good and doubt is not always bad. What we need is the right degree of either for every situation. And to be able to have that, we need wisdom, self-awareness, knowledge and the capacity to observe and adjust our attitude in regards to feedback that is relevant and valuable. The one thing that could have made this article better is the same thing that can make us, people, better: discernment - the ability to correctly identify and weigh things and to figure out what and how much is warranted. Both faith and doubt have the capacity to save us or to ruin us, only in different ways.
I find you really condescending and dismissive. One becomes defensive when one has something to defend. I suspect this article challenged your worldview far more than you would like to admit.
I am always amused by people who accuse me of something while committing the same sin or error. It is quite telling that instead of engaging with the meaning of my words, all you could do was criticize the attitude and tone that you perceive. Perhaps look into a mirror first. If you actually had a good point worth taking into account, you would have made it...
I don't think you were condescending. You articulated a smart observation about the limits of the "doubt: bad," "faith: good" paradigm that Freya seems to create.
This was a thought-provoking article, and there's a valuable truth or even truths within it; but it would have been better if, instead of making sweeping statements, Freya focused on specific areas and explained how doubt can be misguided.
Thank you. I spoke my mind in case someone finds some value in my perspective. People are free to choose how they perceive and respond to my message. Many of the problems she mentions in this article are important and we need to talk about them more, so I happy to see those included. But I stand by what I said...
I suppose Freya might be talking about a healthy faith, applied correctly and ideally.
the Light side of Faith VS the Shadow side of Doubt
People may WANT to be loyal, and have faith - but it can feel overwhelmingly difficult to know HOW and WHEN... or IF it is even worth it in the end.
Especially when every single thing that is awful and possible is constantly advertised to us. All we see and hear are about all the potential pitfalls and risks; warning signs, danger signs, horror stories.
The culture over focuses on every possible negative outcome, and risk.
There is no proper counter balance of attention toward - and examples of - the beauty and good that can come from such things as Faith and Loyalty.
also - there is a lack of attention toward problem solving. Many of these obstacles, or negative outcomes are solvable, preventable - resolutions exist. they are not dead ends, death sentences.
I suppose the culture lacks an internal compass or guide, our own self, soul, and heart- that we can turn inward for discernment and necessary reassessment. It takes a lot of energy to do this, it is exhausting, and it is constant work.
It is much easier, with your mind being flooded with warning labels, and with every reason in the book why you shouldn't do the thing - to shut off your brain and throw it all out, or not try at all.
All this shit requires immense endurance training and heavy lifting that is the inner psychic work lol.
it is hard stuff! So no wonder the culture is apt to throw it all out. The solutions to your unique, specific problems can't be answered in someone else's tweet - or with a blanketed advice podcast - only inside yourself.
And too maybe if we leaned on the wisdom of our elders for guidance rather than the internet - it would be easier. But i think the culture writes off, has no respect for, and throws out elderly wisdom.
So maybe the issue lies more in thinking that the answers one seeks should be easy, binary, or located outside of yourself. 👏
+ the lack of cultural light shined on the life-giving, beautiful potentialities and outcomes of things like Faith and Loyalty.
Wow! You read my mind. I read the entire article feeling uncomfortable with the polarization and your comment summed up what bothered me: none of this is that simple. Without discernment, faith also generates as many problems as doubt.
A skeptic. The present is a sum of the past. We need to hone our ability to discriminate. Life, after all, is complicated. Wisdom, self-awareness, thoughtfulness are just consequences of paying attention. And yet, "Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt." Thank you Shakespeare. And faith is the spine on which hangs what hope imagines could be. Faith & doubt are not a false dichotomy but synergistic cyclone that can overwhelm. Good luck discerning yourself away from a despised self that our world now can place at our doorstep. Eric Hoffer points out that, "We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves." Reason, fact, data, and postulates are used to defend our choices not make them. Doubt and faith are always in tension.
> You've also created a fake dichotomy that doesn't really exist in the world. Faith is not always good and doubt is not always bad.
Sounds like a false dichotomy that you've created and projected onto her. Else, you'd have applied the discernment that you're pointing to - towards a closer reading of the piece. No?
Thank you for this, Freya – it is a great analysis. Tragically, it is mainly my generation, and the one which came before us, which needs to ask "what have we done?" and hang our heads in shame. A few thoughts:
1. The power of the kind of visceral doubt you describe so often comes from a place of deep isolation, of not knowing or being known - and that is our first transgression against our children's fundamental needs. Parents and families need to be there, to teach, to set an example and to 'buffer' children through difficult and traumatic experiences. As a therapist, I have seen first hand how loneliness and isolation underlie so much else, and rip away the confidence to manage life's ups and downs.
2. As you rightly say, when children have been abandoned in this way, how can they learn to commit? As with love, we need to see commitment in action – but adults no longer commit to their children above all else, as they should. Personal fulfilment comes first.
3. To trust ourselves and others, we have to know ourselves. This is core to identity formation. Historically our identities were forged, piece by piece over a lifetime, through family, community, personality and interests. Without those things it has become an off-the-shelf product, and like any other consumer product, we're afraid we might pick the wrong one (a fear heightened when being ostracised can be the outcome of making a mistake).
4. When we are brought up within a framework – such as faith or religious belief – we can later choose to reject it. We think we give children an advantage by not 'indoctrinating' them, but in fact life is much harder to commit to anything when all we have is a swirling mass of options, and no template for assessing, and then accepting or rejecting philosophies.
5. The material is everything now – we only have to look at quizzes to detect 'privilege' to see that it is all about material goods, rather than the emotional, moral or spiritual. Whatever our circumstances or income, having two parents who love each other and who love us provides the greatest 'privilege' on earth. We have completely forgotten that.
6. Finally, choice – sometimes, it is not simply about making the right choice or the wrong choice, but making the choice that you have made work for you. Think it through carefully, then stick with it. In choosing anything, we are by default not choosing other options. This is the point at which faith and commitment come into their own – and these are habits which improve with practice. That is why marriage matters – ideally, we've both made this decision, so now, whatever happens, we both have faith that we can work through it together. Sadly, however, marriage is as disposable as everything else now.
We all now need to "commit to kill the doubt and start the adventure". Life is a wonderful adventure – marriage and parenthood in particular – and the tragedy is that so many young people are afraid even to set out.
Happy to see Fromm mentioned. Underappreciated thinker, in my opinion.
For young people who want to learn what true love looks like, and that it is inseparable from faith and commitment, I can recommend his book "the art of loving". What he describes there much better describes the good and long lasting relationships I've seen in our grandparents' generation. Then our parents kind of dropped the ball and just left us to fend for ourselves it seems.
I really like this post. You're addressing an incredibly complex issue . . . I would like to say one or two things, though: (1) I want to point out to anyone who reads this comment that reality, in short, is what you make of it. Someone could say that the world is a faithless place, and sitting right there next to them could be a person as faithful as faithful comes. Someone could say the world is a hopeless place, and right around the corner is a deeply hopeful person. How we feel about the world, in other words, reflects not the state of the world but the state of ourselves within. And the most effective way to change the world is to first change ourselves. I'm not saying we shouldn't put fingers on widespread issues--of course, we should. But I am saying that no single individual has to buy into statements other people make about the world. The world may feel faithless to some, but I can almost guarantee there are tons of people within five square miles, hopeful and happy as ever, married to partners they trust. Social media distorts objective reality. (2) I think it's important to consider here, with this frame in mind, what it means to live doubtfully. If we have no faith in the world--I know I'm not exactly phrasing things as you articulated in the post, I'm just making a point--that doesn't mean, again, that the world is worth doubting. It just means we doubt ourselves. The question is, why? Why do we doubt ourselves? Well, why do you doubt anyone else? Because they don't keep their word. And so, I'd say in general that anyone who doubts the world simply doubts themselves because they keep breaking promises to themselves. And why do they keep doing this? If I had to say, it'd be that we are a society of addicts, holding higher than our purpose those things to which we are impulsively drawn. Of course, it's a little more complicated (people need clarity on what's worth pursuing as well, for example), but in short, this post reflects to me--and you've done an excellent job painting the portrait--the fact that a whole lot of people simply keep breaking promises to themselves because they prefer the comforts of their impulses. Looking forward to reading more of your work!
I just recalled something I'd like to add to this . . . I know I look like a psycho and I know nobody is probably gonna read this, but I need to type it out: it's easy to forget that history repeats itself--meaning that feeling this doubt and uncertainty and inability to commit to faith could merely be entirely characteristic of growing up and being a teenager and a 20 something. I'm not saying there's not shit going on in the world that's not "normal," but I am saying that a good lot of what we're all experiencing is very likely a completely normal part of the coming of age process.
Very well written and thoughtful post, Freya, thanks for it. You mentioned in your post “More and more of us doubting morality, seeing no benefit to being a better person, because why, what does it matter?” Well, it may not make any difference in a material sense to be a better person, but if you are a person of faith, it matters to God. We have free will, we can do what we want, for better or worse. But as somebody who became a person of faith 2/3 into my life, I figure we were put here for a purpose. And it’s up to us what to do with it.
So glad I found your work, Freya. Your thoughtfulness and care are of incalculable importance, especially in a prevailing culture that favours the loud, the simplistic, and absolutist, over the nuanced and subtle. Your voice is needed to help awaken many from sleepwalking into the abyss of a devitalized, materialist, mechanistic nihilism.
faith is the ability to work with limited information to do what’s right. ironic that in a world with overstimulation and too much information, doubt increases exponentially. perhaps too much information is the cause of decision paralysis or doubt.
This is an interesting article Freya, and it has some merit in calling out the avoidance culture that seems to be forming among people. However, I would be careful with generalizing it to our entire generation. People who put more emphasis on their fears and doubts, generally pessimists, are counterbalanced by others, often in the same social circles, who have trust and faith in the world (optimists and realists). What I've personally noticed is that this seems to have something to do with the amount of agency we were given as children. The people in my life who don't trust the world and their own decisions are often the same people whose parents either criticized them or did everything for them, or both. You touch on this in your essays about fear of abandonment and how we raise our girls, though, unless I'm misremembering, I rarely see you talk about trusting our children to learn from their own mistakes. When we are given a healthy amount of autonomy as kids, we ultimately learn to have faith in ourselves and our abilities, but also to expect that of others. Obviously, there are many factors at play here, but I think this culture is more of a symptom of the way we were treated when young than the root of the issue itself.
I will read anything you write. Haha I loved this — so many honest observations and brave analyses. I live alongside and work with college students, primarily Gen Z women, most of them professing a faith in Jesus Christ but many still wrestling with some of the remnants of their raising that you’ve articulated. This left me with a lot to think about. Thank you for taking the time to write this! I can’t wait for your book. 🤍
This piece was absolutely beautiful. You captured what I’ve been contemplating lately. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. In a world where doubt often masquerades as a “justified” suspicion within oneself and in others, faith becomes a radical act of humility. It is the choice to set aside fears that hold us captive and turn others into our enemies. Instead, we choose love, we choose hope, which, as you mentioned, can be perceived as naivety. I truly appreciate this work, my soul needed this testament of hope.
I appreciate Fromm’s work. But God says it better, and deeper and it’s timeless. He hasn’t abandon us, but sometimes it “ feels” that way. He gave us people to love. Just love them, don’t worry about reciprocity. Go to him with your wounds. He Adores you with profound reverence. He’s your best friend. Sort it all out with him in prayer. Be anchored in that love then you can love yourself and everyone else without expectation. We are material and immaterial beings. Our soul matters, you matter…. He doesn’t make junk. Let’s use our gifts to glorify him. We have freedom to choose a relationship with him or not. He’ll never force his love on us. We freely choose it… I was a lost soul in nyc for many many years. I’m gen x. We didn’t know either. But now I do. And I’m at peace. I wish the same to you on this Holy Thursday…The Passion of the Christ today ( the movie) is something we’ll watch to enter into the next three days. Always hold onto hope…
Helps explain why freedom in the New Testament isn't described as the ability to do whatever you want, but the freedom to deny one's self and be a slave to Christ.
What strikes me about this piece is your recognition that our capacity for faith is a muscle that atrophies without use. The modern condition has substituted algorithm-driven indecision for the steadfastness that defined previous generations- this mirrors what philosophers have called "the tyranny of choice" - where freedom without framework becomes its own prison. We rejected traditional constraints only to find ourselves constrained by indecision and paralysed by possibilities.
What faith teaches us is that obstacles test commitment rather than invalidate it. That character is forged through commitment, not preserved through hesitation. Perhaps what we need is not more options but the courage to close doors, not more information but the wisdom to act on what we already know to be true. There is profound strength in saying "this, and not that" and acknowledging our personal agency to choose between an action that can set us up to success versus one that self-sabotages us.
In Brazilian Jujitsu we called it 'paralysis by analyses' and it only starts once you learn enough to have to choose. At first you might only know one counter to each position so the choice is easy but once you know enough suddenly you might find yourself getting choked out not because you did the wrong thing but because you did nothing.
Wow love this analogy, really practical example of how having too much to choose from sets you back- what is the solution they use in jujitsu?
I wouldn't say there is one solution, everyone's body and mind works a bit different. One way to start getting over it is to be okay with doing the wrong thing as opposed to nothing. As you get more experience certain moves and styles work better for your mind and body and so you start drilling those techniques more and more and let others go, know what they are but not train them into muscle memory. So you start developing your own way and let muscle memory take over in a flow state. I'm sure other people would have other answers. I still struggle with it from time to time as I tend to be a perpetual over thinker of things.
Whale of wisdom??
I think people have had faith and doubt since the beginning of time. I'm sure personality traits and mental health play a huge role here.
It's easy to craft a story that explains everything through a single lens, but I doubt that is wise and accurate, especially in this case. You make many claims that are too simple, generalized, incomplete and, not to mention unfounded. There are grains of truth here (like the huge problems with dating apps, casual relationships, porn), but if you oversimplify, generalize, and exaggerate so much, I think your message becomes less valuable, not more.
You've also created a fake dichotomy that doesn't really exist in the world. Faith is not always good and doubt is not always bad. What we need is the right degree of either for every situation. And to be able to have that, we need wisdom, self-awareness, knowledge and the capacity to observe and adjust our attitude in regards to feedback that is relevant and valuable. The one thing that could have made this article better is the same thing that can make us, people, better: discernment - the ability to correctly identify and weigh things and to figure out what and how much is warranted. Both faith and doubt have the capacity to save us or to ruin us, only in different ways.
I find you really condescending and dismissive. One becomes defensive when one has something to defend. I suspect this article challenged your worldview far more than you would like to admit.
I am always amused by people who accuse me of something while committing the same sin or error. It is quite telling that instead of engaging with the meaning of my words, all you could do was criticize the attitude and tone that you perceive. Perhaps look into a mirror first. If you actually had a good point worth taking into account, you would have made it...
I don't think you were condescending. You articulated a smart observation about the limits of the "doubt: bad," "faith: good" paradigm that Freya seems to create.
This was a thought-provoking article, and there's a valuable truth or even truths within it; but it would have been better if, instead of making sweeping statements, Freya focused on specific areas and explained how doubt can be misguided.
Thank you. I spoke my mind in case someone finds some value in my perspective. People are free to choose how they perceive and respond to my message. Many of the problems she mentions in this article are important and we need to talk about them more, so I happy to see those included. But I stand by what I said...
I agree, thanks for making that point.
I suppose Freya might be talking about a healthy faith, applied correctly and ideally.
the Light side of Faith VS the Shadow side of Doubt
People may WANT to be loyal, and have faith - but it can feel overwhelmingly difficult to know HOW and WHEN... or IF it is even worth it in the end.
Especially when every single thing that is awful and possible is constantly advertised to us. All we see and hear are about all the potential pitfalls and risks; warning signs, danger signs, horror stories.
The culture over focuses on every possible negative outcome, and risk.
There is no proper counter balance of attention toward - and examples of - the beauty and good that can come from such things as Faith and Loyalty.
also - there is a lack of attention toward problem solving. Many of these obstacles, or negative outcomes are solvable, preventable - resolutions exist. they are not dead ends, death sentences.
I suppose the culture lacks an internal compass or guide, our own self, soul, and heart- that we can turn inward for discernment and necessary reassessment. It takes a lot of energy to do this, it is exhausting, and it is constant work.
It is much easier, with your mind being flooded with warning labels, and with every reason in the book why you shouldn't do the thing - to shut off your brain and throw it all out, or not try at all.
All this shit requires immense endurance training and heavy lifting that is the inner psychic work lol.
it is hard stuff! So no wonder the culture is apt to throw it all out. The solutions to your unique, specific problems can't be answered in someone else's tweet - or with a blanketed advice podcast - only inside yourself.
And too maybe if we leaned on the wisdom of our elders for guidance rather than the internet - it would be easier. But i think the culture writes off, has no respect for, and throws out elderly wisdom.
So maybe the issue lies more in thinking that the answers one seeks should be easy, binary, or located outside of yourself. 👏
+ the lack of cultural light shined on the life-giving, beautiful potentialities and outcomes of things like Faith and Loyalty.
Wow! You read my mind. I read the entire article feeling uncomfortable with the polarization and your comment summed up what bothered me: none of this is that simple. Without discernment, faith also generates as many problems as doubt.
Thank you for letting me know. I'm glad you saw the importance of discernment - we definitely need that!
A skeptic. The present is a sum of the past. We need to hone our ability to discriminate. Life, after all, is complicated. Wisdom, self-awareness, thoughtfulness are just consequences of paying attention. And yet, "Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt." Thank you Shakespeare. And faith is the spine on which hangs what hope imagines could be. Faith & doubt are not a false dichotomy but synergistic cyclone that can overwhelm. Good luck discerning yourself away from a despised self that our world now can place at our doorstep. Eric Hoffer points out that, "We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves." Reason, fact, data, and postulates are used to defend our choices not make them. Doubt and faith are always in tension.
> You've also created a fake dichotomy that doesn't really exist in the world. Faith is not always good and doubt is not always bad.
Sounds like a false dichotomy that you've created and projected onto her. Else, you'd have applied the discernment that you're pointing to - towards a closer reading of the piece. No?
Thank you for this, Freya – it is a great analysis. Tragically, it is mainly my generation, and the one which came before us, which needs to ask "what have we done?" and hang our heads in shame. A few thoughts:
1. The power of the kind of visceral doubt you describe so often comes from a place of deep isolation, of not knowing or being known - and that is our first transgression against our children's fundamental needs. Parents and families need to be there, to teach, to set an example and to 'buffer' children through difficult and traumatic experiences. As a therapist, I have seen first hand how loneliness and isolation underlie so much else, and rip away the confidence to manage life's ups and downs.
2. As you rightly say, when children have been abandoned in this way, how can they learn to commit? As with love, we need to see commitment in action – but adults no longer commit to their children above all else, as they should. Personal fulfilment comes first.
3. To trust ourselves and others, we have to know ourselves. This is core to identity formation. Historically our identities were forged, piece by piece over a lifetime, through family, community, personality and interests. Without those things it has become an off-the-shelf product, and like any other consumer product, we're afraid we might pick the wrong one (a fear heightened when being ostracised can be the outcome of making a mistake).
4. When we are brought up within a framework – such as faith or religious belief – we can later choose to reject it. We think we give children an advantage by not 'indoctrinating' them, but in fact life is much harder to commit to anything when all we have is a swirling mass of options, and no template for assessing, and then accepting or rejecting philosophies.
5. The material is everything now – we only have to look at quizzes to detect 'privilege' to see that it is all about material goods, rather than the emotional, moral or spiritual. Whatever our circumstances or income, having two parents who love each other and who love us provides the greatest 'privilege' on earth. We have completely forgotten that.
6. Finally, choice – sometimes, it is not simply about making the right choice or the wrong choice, but making the choice that you have made work for you. Think it through carefully, then stick with it. In choosing anything, we are by default not choosing other options. This is the point at which faith and commitment come into their own – and these are habits which improve with practice. That is why marriage matters – ideally, we've both made this decision, so now, whatever happens, we both have faith that we can work through it together. Sadly, however, marriage is as disposable as everything else now.
We all now need to "commit to kill the doubt and start the adventure". Life is a wonderful adventure – marriage and parenthood in particular – and the tragedy is that so many young people are afraid even to set out.
Happy to see Fromm mentioned. Underappreciated thinker, in my opinion.
For young people who want to learn what true love looks like, and that it is inseparable from faith and commitment, I can recommend his book "the art of loving". What he describes there much better describes the good and long lasting relationships I've seen in our grandparents' generation. Then our parents kind of dropped the ball and just left us to fend for ourselves it seems.
One of my favourite books of all time.
I really like this post. You're addressing an incredibly complex issue . . . I would like to say one or two things, though: (1) I want to point out to anyone who reads this comment that reality, in short, is what you make of it. Someone could say that the world is a faithless place, and sitting right there next to them could be a person as faithful as faithful comes. Someone could say the world is a hopeless place, and right around the corner is a deeply hopeful person. How we feel about the world, in other words, reflects not the state of the world but the state of ourselves within. And the most effective way to change the world is to first change ourselves. I'm not saying we shouldn't put fingers on widespread issues--of course, we should. But I am saying that no single individual has to buy into statements other people make about the world. The world may feel faithless to some, but I can almost guarantee there are tons of people within five square miles, hopeful and happy as ever, married to partners they trust. Social media distorts objective reality. (2) I think it's important to consider here, with this frame in mind, what it means to live doubtfully. If we have no faith in the world--I know I'm not exactly phrasing things as you articulated in the post, I'm just making a point--that doesn't mean, again, that the world is worth doubting. It just means we doubt ourselves. The question is, why? Why do we doubt ourselves? Well, why do you doubt anyone else? Because they don't keep their word. And so, I'd say in general that anyone who doubts the world simply doubts themselves because they keep breaking promises to themselves. And why do they keep doing this? If I had to say, it'd be that we are a society of addicts, holding higher than our purpose those things to which we are impulsively drawn. Of course, it's a little more complicated (people need clarity on what's worth pursuing as well, for example), but in short, this post reflects to me--and you've done an excellent job painting the portrait--the fact that a whole lot of people simply keep breaking promises to themselves because they prefer the comforts of their impulses. Looking forward to reading more of your work!
I just recalled something I'd like to add to this . . . I know I look like a psycho and I know nobody is probably gonna read this, but I need to type it out: it's easy to forget that history repeats itself--meaning that feeling this doubt and uncertainty and inability to commit to faith could merely be entirely characteristic of growing up and being a teenager and a 20 something. I'm not saying there's not shit going on in the world that's not "normal," but I am saying that a good lot of what we're all experiencing is very likely a completely normal part of the coming of age process.
Very well written and thoughtful post, Freya, thanks for it. You mentioned in your post “More and more of us doubting morality, seeing no benefit to being a better person, because why, what does it matter?” Well, it may not make any difference in a material sense to be a better person, but if you are a person of faith, it matters to God. We have free will, we can do what we want, for better or worse. But as somebody who became a person of faith 2/3 into my life, I figure we were put here for a purpose. And it’s up to us what to do with it.
So glad I found your work, Freya. Your thoughtfulness and care are of incalculable importance, especially in a prevailing culture that favours the loud, the simplistic, and absolutist, over the nuanced and subtle. Your voice is needed to help awaken many from sleepwalking into the abyss of a devitalized, materialist, mechanistic nihilism.
With gratitude. –Adam
As Jordan Peterson once said:
"You have a moral responsibility to maintain faith and aim upwards"
and
“You have to trust. It’s an act of courage. Cynicism is easy.”
Beautiful piece. A lot to think about.
faith is the ability to work with limited information to do what’s right. ironic that in a world with overstimulation and too much information, doubt increases exponentially. perhaps too much information is the cause of decision paralysis or doubt.
This is an interesting article Freya, and it has some merit in calling out the avoidance culture that seems to be forming among people. However, I would be careful with generalizing it to our entire generation. People who put more emphasis on their fears and doubts, generally pessimists, are counterbalanced by others, often in the same social circles, who have trust and faith in the world (optimists and realists). What I've personally noticed is that this seems to have something to do with the amount of agency we were given as children. The people in my life who don't trust the world and their own decisions are often the same people whose parents either criticized them or did everything for them, or both. You touch on this in your essays about fear of abandonment and how we raise our girls, though, unless I'm misremembering, I rarely see you talk about trusting our children to learn from their own mistakes. When we are given a healthy amount of autonomy as kids, we ultimately learn to have faith in ourselves and our abilities, but also to expect that of others. Obviously, there are many factors at play here, but I think this culture is more of a symptom of the way we were treated when young than the root of the issue itself.
Haunting and deep, as with so much of your writing. Thank you Freya.
I will read anything you write. Haha I loved this — so many honest observations and brave analyses. I live alongside and work with college students, primarily Gen Z women, most of them professing a faith in Jesus Christ but many still wrestling with some of the remnants of their raising that you’ve articulated. This left me with a lot to think about. Thank you for taking the time to write this! I can’t wait for your book. 🤍
This piece was absolutely beautiful. You captured what I’ve been contemplating lately. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. In a world where doubt often masquerades as a “justified” suspicion within oneself and in others, faith becomes a radical act of humility. It is the choice to set aside fears that hold us captive and turn others into our enemies. Instead, we choose love, we choose hope, which, as you mentioned, can be perceived as naivety. I truly appreciate this work, my soul needed this testament of hope.
I appreciate Fromm’s work. But God says it better, and deeper and it’s timeless. He hasn’t abandon us, but sometimes it “ feels” that way. He gave us people to love. Just love them, don’t worry about reciprocity. Go to him with your wounds. He Adores you with profound reverence. He’s your best friend. Sort it all out with him in prayer. Be anchored in that love then you can love yourself and everyone else without expectation. We are material and immaterial beings. Our soul matters, you matter…. He doesn’t make junk. Let’s use our gifts to glorify him. We have freedom to choose a relationship with him or not. He’ll never force his love on us. We freely choose it… I was a lost soul in nyc for many many years. I’m gen x. We didn’t know either. But now I do. And I’m at peace. I wish the same to you on this Holy Thursday…The Passion of the Christ today ( the movie) is something we’ll watch to enter into the next three days. Always hold onto hope…
Helps explain why freedom in the New Testament isn't described as the ability to do whatever you want, but the freedom to deny one's self and be a slave to Christ.
very well put, Jason.