What do you think?
Rate this book
Only Ever Freedom
Only Ever Freedom is a covert manual for internally exiting the modern world.
Instead of focusing on the various common 'escape routes' such as homesteading, van dwelling, and simple living, Only Ever Freedom seeks to help the reader deconstruct the abundance of presumptions that make up their normal, modern world.
Beginning from a foundation of individual freedom, the text swiftly moves through schooling, privacy, credentialism, careerism, modern ambition culture, identity, politics, money, and even the very concept of normality, as a means to deprogram the very notion of modern man.
Instead of telling the reader what they should do, or what their exit should look like, Only Ever Freedom seeks only to supply the reader with what they need to make that choice for themselves.
Instead of focusing on the various common 'escape routes' such as homesteading, van dwelling, and simple living, Only Ever Freedom seeks to help the reader deconstruct the abundance of presumptions that make up their normal, modern world.
Beginning from a foundation of individual freedom, the text swiftly moves through schooling, privacy, credentialism, careerism, modern ambition culture, identity, politics, money, and even the very concept of normality, as a means to deprogram the very notion of modern man.
Instead of telling the reader what they should do, or what their exit should look like, Only Ever Freedom seeks only to supply the reader with what they need to make that choice for themselves.
- GenresPhilosophy
250 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 20, 2022
5 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
James Ellis
6 books16 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
James Ellis (under the pseudonym 'Meta-Nomad')
James Ellis (under the pseudonym 'Meta-Nomad')
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 3, 2022
I discovered James Ellis on Justin Murphy’s Other Life podcast, a conversation around his conversion to Christianity, his podcast Hermitix and making a living as an independent thinker. I did not finish his book on Nick Land, but I flew through this one. Ellis sets a framework, the “modern mindset” that most people are living under - you wake up without enthusiasm for the day, go a job you hate, and come home at the end of the day too tired to do much else other than watch television before going to bed so that you do it all over again the next day.
This is the theme of Fight Club, but without the prerequisite of burning everything down to change your path. Modern people are some combination of depressed, anxious, unhappy and bored. To cope, you buy stuff you don’t really need, often out of mimetic desire of keeping with your friends, and then work hard for a promotion to buy more stuff. You might get the promotion, but it probably won’t make you happier. Even stuff that seemingly is a necessity, like a bed, you don’t actually need, there is no reason you could not just sleep on the floor, but a bedroom with a bedframe and a mattress is so ingrained in the culture that sleeping in any other fashion is considered crazy. What we are actually seeking is the freedom to make our own decisions, to simply do what we want to do, but from the beginning, school has programmed us into this path that is a disaster for the freedom we seek. Many modern people are just filling time instead of l-i-v-i-n.
People will try all sorts of tricks to get out of this modern mindset, excessive consumption, running marathons, substance abuse, yoga, mindfulness, and minimalism. But few realize that consumption or even sleeping on a bed is simply a choice. Two of the most popular escapes are social media and video games. Video games that simulate real life are some of the most popular. These two escapes are popular because they are proxies for the freedom to live life as we desire.
Some people recognize the modern state but ask what else is there. Ellis does not have a prescription for figuring out the meaning of your life, but emphasizes that you don’t have to be miserable. The majority of people desire to live a basic, quiet life, have a family and a few immediate friends, with a stable job, a few hobbies, and some higher meaning. If you can recognize this, you can deprogram yourself from the modern mindset and live a life that is happy and has a deeper meaning. In the podcast with Justin Murphy, Ellis goes into how he himself has done this with his podcast and self-publishing that allow him to live a life that is not one of great material wealth but hardly one of poverty, or that of Project Mayhem, one that allows him to do meaningful intellectual work every day.
Ellis cites Ivan Illich - Deschooling Society, Theodore Kaczynski - Industrial Society and Its Future, and David Graeber - Bullshit Jobs, of which I was familiar. Perhaps not so much new ground is covered in Only Ever Freedom, but it is to the point and presented freshly. It is a possible alternative to the modern mindset that seems to me to have gotten worse in the past two years since the start of the pandemic. B+. Recommended.
This is the theme of Fight Club, but without the prerequisite of burning everything down to change your path. Modern people are some combination of depressed, anxious, unhappy and bored. To cope, you buy stuff you don’t really need, often out of mimetic desire of keeping with your friends, and then work hard for a promotion to buy more stuff. You might get the promotion, but it probably won’t make you happier. Even stuff that seemingly is a necessity, like a bed, you don’t actually need, there is no reason you could not just sleep on the floor, but a bedroom with a bedframe and a mattress is so ingrained in the culture that sleeping in any other fashion is considered crazy. What we are actually seeking is the freedom to make our own decisions, to simply do what we want to do, but from the beginning, school has programmed us into this path that is a disaster for the freedom we seek. Many modern people are just filling time instead of l-i-v-i-n.
People will try all sorts of tricks to get out of this modern mindset, excessive consumption, running marathons, substance abuse, yoga, mindfulness, and minimalism. But few realize that consumption or even sleeping on a bed is simply a choice. Two of the most popular escapes are social media and video games. Video games that simulate real life are some of the most popular. These two escapes are popular because they are proxies for the freedom to live life as we desire.
Some people recognize the modern state but ask what else is there. Ellis does not have a prescription for figuring out the meaning of your life, but emphasizes that you don’t have to be miserable. The majority of people desire to live a basic, quiet life, have a family and a few immediate friends, with a stable job, a few hobbies, and some higher meaning. If you can recognize this, you can deprogram yourself from the modern mindset and live a life that is happy and has a deeper meaning. In the podcast with Justin Murphy, Ellis goes into how he himself has done this with his podcast and self-publishing that allow him to live a life that is not one of great material wealth but hardly one of poverty, or that of Project Mayhem, one that allows him to do meaningful intellectual work every day.
Ellis cites Ivan Illich - Deschooling Society, Theodore Kaczynski - Industrial Society and Its Future, and David Graeber - Bullshit Jobs, of which I was familiar. Perhaps not so much new ground is covered in Only Ever Freedom, but it is to the point and presented freshly. It is a possible alternative to the modern mindset that seems to me to have gotten worse in the past two years since the start of the pandemic. B+. Recommended.
November 21, 2023
Bro spitting facts upon facts
July 31, 2023
I can finally look out the window after reading this.
March 11, 2024
if you really want to feel better, try actually giving therapy a chance. Full of typos, redundancies, and weak, unsubstantiated claims. Read the works he cites and save yourself the trouble.
December 2, 2024
When asked how my job is going my go-to response is "fine", and then to clarify that I don't really like it "...a bit boring though." I'll then qualify this again, lest I seem totally miserable, with a statement along the lines of "But I don't really expect to be completely happy in any job, ever." Wait, did that have the intended effect? I don't like to talk about my work at all, I have a hard time explaining it to people and even thinking about it makes me a little morose. I don't even have the luxury of having a pointless and easy job, I'm just not attached to it in any real way, it's as meaningful to me as going to the toilet or coughing. The difference is that I don't spend 10 of my 16 waking hours coughing or going to the toilet.
Regardless, at this juncture someone may ask "Why do you work there then?", my immediate and true response is "Money." The question that will really give me pause is, if I'm so bored, what would I like to do instead? And why don't I? Here are some common responses:
1. "Nothing that I would want to do could make me any money, so it's not even worth considering."
2. "I'd like to do something to do with my degree."
3. "I don't know, I'm fine doing this now to save up a bit of money."
The last response is the most true, and the first reveals the most about my assumptions about what life can be. The second if not straightforwardly untrue is at least slightly insincere, being based more on what I think one ought to do than what I actually want - also revealing of my assumptions.
It's just these assumptions that are exposed as just that, assumptions, in Only Ever Freedom. James Ellis does this in an accessible but unrelenting manner that will definitely make you think twice about the next time you make a decision based on certain ideas of normality and possibility. If you've heard the Hermitix podcast you'll know Ellis as someone regularly wading into highly technical philosophical waters, but this book is very clear, and has philosophy as its base rather than its textual substance, offering up to the reader on a platter assumptions they make about everyday, ordinary life, and asking "Is this really what you want? Is this the only way things can be?". To go into the meat of these assumptions and what we could be doing instead would be superfluous, as this is very much the sort of book that deals in ideas that you have probably thought of before, but that, ironically, seem stronger coming from a voice separate to your own.
On the negative side, the whole thing becomes quite disorganised the further you get through it. I found the constant reassurance of neutrality from the author (and I can understand why they were put in) a little grating, considering some of the preferences that become fairly obvious as you progress. There are a couple of typos. I also thought some more time could have been spent on the interpersonal practicalities of modernity and, if you so choose, exiting it. This book would have been perfect for someone young and living alone, but what if you have a family to support? What if your wishes collide with theirs? What if your kids have come to think that modernity is pretty great and that their dad's contentment with "less" is a weird impingement on their own ability to follow their wishes? Maybe I missed something in the book that would tackle this, or maybe, likely even, in that I think this was explicitly said at some point, the book isn't concerned with the practical minutiae of exit, and that this is for the reader to figure out.
Regardless, at this juncture someone may ask "Why do you work there then?", my immediate and true response is "Money." The question that will really give me pause is, if I'm so bored, what would I like to do instead? And why don't I? Here are some common responses:
1. "Nothing that I would want to do could make me any money, so it's not even worth considering."
2. "I'd like to do something to do with my degree."
3. "I don't know, I'm fine doing this now to save up a bit of money."
The last response is the most true, and the first reveals the most about my assumptions about what life can be. The second if not straightforwardly untrue is at least slightly insincere, being based more on what I think one ought to do than what I actually want - also revealing of my assumptions.
It's just these assumptions that are exposed as just that, assumptions, in Only Ever Freedom. James Ellis does this in an accessible but unrelenting manner that will definitely make you think twice about the next time you make a decision based on certain ideas of normality and possibility. If you've heard the Hermitix podcast you'll know Ellis as someone regularly wading into highly technical philosophical waters, but this book is very clear, and has philosophy as its base rather than its textual substance, offering up to the reader on a platter assumptions they make about everyday, ordinary life, and asking "Is this really what you want? Is this the only way things can be?". To go into the meat of these assumptions and what we could be doing instead would be superfluous, as this is very much the sort of book that deals in ideas that you have probably thought of before, but that, ironically, seem stronger coming from a voice separate to your own.
On the negative side, the whole thing becomes quite disorganised the further you get through it. I found the constant reassurance of neutrality from the author (and I can understand why they were put in) a little grating, considering some of the preferences that become fairly obvious as you progress. There are a couple of typos. I also thought some more time could have been spent on the interpersonal practicalities of modernity and, if you so choose, exiting it. This book would have been perfect for someone young and living alone, but what if you have a family to support? What if your wishes collide with theirs? What if your kids have come to think that modernity is pretty great and that their dad's contentment with "less" is a weird impingement on their own ability to follow their wishes? Maybe I missed something in the book that would tackle this, or maybe, likely even, in that I think this was explicitly said at some point, the book isn't concerned with the practical minutiae of exit, and that this is for the reader to figure out.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews