“But you must just answer a last question. Two equally old trees are growing in a large garden. One of the trees grows in a sunny spot and has plenty of good soil and water. The other tree grows in poor soil in a dark spot. Which of the trees do you think is bigger? And which of them bears more fruit?”

“Obviously the tree with the best conditions for growing.”

“According to Spinoza, this tree is free. It has its full freedom to develop its inherent abilities. But if it is an apple tree it will not have the ability to bear pears or plums. The same applies to us humans. We can be hindered in our development and our personal growth by political conditions, for instance. Outer circumstances can constrain us. Only when we are free to develop our innate abilities can we live as free beings.”

In this season of political rhetoric, it’s so easy to slip into the old binary dualism mode. In regard to the issue of unemployment and government welfare, I feel most people (especially political conservatives) would accept what psychologists would say is a signal of psycho-therapeutic health: accepting responsibility for ones own life, despite all the outside pressures that can easily be blamed for what happens to them. However, as Jostein Gaarder and Baruch Spinoza attest to in the passage above, there is absolutely another side to this coin.

Both perspectives must be kept in mind. Yes, personal responsibility is vital, but like the tree with poor soil and no shade, it can only take you so far. True freedom–the ability to actualize our greatest potential–requires both the opportunity do to so and the will to do it.

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Photograph above by Toshiya Watanbe