Freedom Beyond Money - A Psychoanalytic Reflection
The hour when shadows lose their sharpness and turn into soft, bleeding stains upon the old parquet floor is the time when words begin to carry a different weight. I sit in the twilight of the room, which feels wider than it actually is—perhaps because there is too much space in it for the things that never happened—and in my mind echo the words someone tossed out today like an old, worn-out coin: "Money may be gone, but at least we are free." This phrase, often used as a shield against poverty or a bitter consolation for missed opportunities, suddenly struck me not as an excuse, but as a profound, almost mystical diagnosis of the human condition.
As I watched the dust motes dancing in the final beam of light, I asked myself what this "lack" we call pennilessness actually means, and how it transforms into the "presence" we call freedom. From a psychoanalytic perspective, money is the most reliable object of our projection; it is the symbolic equivalent of the libido, of security, of paternal protection, of the illusion that we can control the chaos of existence. When it is absent, the ego feels stripped, exposed to the cold wind of reality, deprived of its social armor. And it is precisely in this nakedness, in this painful rupture with the false pillars of the external world, that the great journey inward begins—where territories are not parceled out and where nothing can be bought, because everything is a gift.
The freedom we speak of in moments of scarcity is not a political right, but an ontological state of the spirit that has finally stopped bartering with itself. Often, our possessions possess us; they are the threads that tie us to an artificial identity, to the image we must maintain before the Other. When the purse is empty, the mask begins to crack. Psychoanalysis teaches us that at the root of every desire lies a fundamental lack—that primal split that makes us seeking beings. If money is an attempt to fill that hole with matter, its absence forces us to look into the hole itself, into the very infinity of our own soul. This is terrifying, yet liberating. Freedom is that space between desire and its fulfillment, where we can finally hear our own breathing, undisturbed by the noise of transactions.
The Silence of the "Now"
I thought about silence. There is a particular silence that descends when one stops calculating the future. Money is always oriented toward "tomorrow"; it is insurance against the uncertainty of time. Its absence hurls us into an eternal, pulsating "now." In this "now," the light on the wall is more important than a bank account, and the taste of bread—real, warm bread shared with a loved one—becomes a communion. The spiritual path always passes through voluntary or forced poverty, for only when the hands are empty can they be raised in prayer or opened for an embrace. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," says the Scripture; in this context, "poverty" is not an intellectual deficit, but the ability to be an empty vessel, ready to be filled with grace.
I remember periods in my life when abundance created the illusion of eternity. Back then, I was a prisoner of my own expectations, a slave to the idea that the world owed me security. Now, as I learn to live with the "little," I discover that freedom is actually the ability to let go of control. It is an act of supreme trust in the Creator or in life itself—a silent "Yes" to everything that comes. In a psychoanalytic sense, this is the transition from the pleasure principle to the reality principle, but refracted through the prism of the spirit—the transformation of "lack" into "source." When you have nothing to lose, you suddenly become invincible. Your center of gravity shifts from external objects to the inner core, to that indestructible "I" that is unaffected by inflation or market crashes.
The Melancholy of the Wanderer
In this freedom, there is much sadness, of course. It is melancholic, like autumn rain washing the dust from the leaves. It is the freedom of the wanderer who knows that every road leads home, but home is not a building—it is a state of the heart. We are free to be vulnerable, to admit to ourselves and to God that we are fragile, made of mud and light, and that no amount of money can save us from the encounter with our own mortality. But it is precisely this encounter that makes us truly alive. In the silence of hardship, prayer becomes purer—it is no longer a list of demands, but simply breathing in the presence of the Silence. "Lord, thank You for what I do not have, for it allowed me to see what I am."
Perhaps freedom lies in small gestures that cost nothing but mean everything: in the way water flows over our wrists, in the scent of the morning air, in the ability to look into the eyes of a stranger and see your own reflection. Money is a mediator; it stands between us and experience, turning life into a commodity. When we remove it from the equation, we touch things directly, without intermediaries. This is an intimacy with being that is almost painful in its intensity. We return to an "oceanic feeling" of connectedness with the world, which we lost the moment we began to measure our worth through external attributes.
Beyond the Matrix of Success
I often wonder if this freedom is merely a rationalization of failure. The ego loves to dress in the robes of a martyr or a philosopher to hide the wounds of its inadequacy in the social race. But if we look deeper, we see that the true failure is to have everything and not possess oneself. To be surrounded by luxury and feel an internal desert. Freedom born of lack is authentic because it is suffered for. It is the result of the process of individuation, where we free ourselves from collective projections of "success" and begin to gravitate toward our own center. This is the alchemy of turning the lead of poverty into the gold of the spirit—a process that occurs only in the retort of solitude and stillness.
We are free because we have ceased to be hostages to the fear of loss. What can you take from a person who has found their treasure in the ability to contemplate a sunset or in the strength to forgive those who betrayed them? Wealth is the capacity for wonder, and that is entirely free. It requires only attention—that form of love which is the scarcest currency in our world. To be free means to have command over your attention, to direct it not toward billboards, but toward the microscopic miracles of everyday life. This is spiritual wakefulness, a constant vigilance of the heart that refuses to fall asleep in the lap of comfort.
Sometimes, in the hours before dawn, I feel the weight of this freedom. It is a responsibility. When you no longer have the excuse of being "busy making money," you are faced with the ultimate question: "What will you do with your soul now that it is the only thing you have left?" This is the boundary question. Many flee from freedom precisely because it demands an answer—it demands creativity, it demands a meaning that is not dictated from the outside. In the absence of means, we are forced to be the creators of our own existence, to sculpt joy from the debris of the day, to find light in the cracks of being.
The Sacred Pause
Freedom is also the right to make mistakes, the right not to be "productive," to simply be an existing presence. Society punishes us for a lack of capital by declaring us invisible. But in this invisibility lies enormous power. To be invisible to the world is to become visible to Heaven. To step out of the matrix of constant comparison and stand in your uniqueness, as it was intended before the beginning of time. This is the psychoanalytic "liberation from the gaze of the Other"—the moment you stop dancing to the music of others' expectations and begin to listen to the rhythm of your own heart.
I believe that God dwells in precisely these empty spaces in our lives. He is not in the full barns, but in the longing of the one who has nowhere to lay his head. Lack is the place where the encounter happens. Just as in music the pause creates the melody, so in our lives the "lack of money" can be that sacred pause in which the song of freedom is born. It is the rhythm of our humility, the pulse of our surrender to a greater will. Freedom is knowing that you are held by hands that are not human, and that you are valued not for what you have, but for what you ARE in your innermost essence.
I close my diary. Outside, the night has embraced the city, and the streetlights flicker like distant hopes. Yes, money may be gone. Tomorrow may be difficult; the anxiety of uncertainty may return. But in this moment, here in this quiet room, I feel freedom filling my lungs with every breath. It is light, it is ethereal, it is vast. Freedom is the only wealth that does not make us heavy, the only capital that increases the more we give it away. And perhaps that is the meaning of our journey—to learn to be wealthy in another way, a way the world does not understand, but which the soul recognizes as its only true home.
Where calculations end, infinity begins. Where the fear for tomorrow fades, the sun of presence rises. We are free, not because we have a choice among many things, but because we have chosen the only thing that matters—to be true to our inner light, even when it is the only thing left to guide us through the dark.
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