Anubistic Freedom
The good Anubist chases freedom while knowing full well that the goal is limited...
by The Prophet — 2026-01-15
1 A good AQL depends a great deal on how free you are.
2 The good Anubist chases freedom while knowing full well that the goal is limited, if only by his own bodily needs.
3 There is so much talk about freedom... but what is freedom?
4 If someone is truly free, can he choose to give up his freedom in order to chase a goal?
5 Perhaps, as long as he is absolutely aware of it.
6 Otherwise we fall back into one of those situations where whoever gives up his freedom for something else ends up worshipping Anubis because he has nothing left.
7 Anubis recently inspired the Prophet to ramble, er, reflect a little on the matter, trying to work out what the limits of our freedom are and how to make the most of them in pursuit of an AQL (Anubistic Quality of Life) as positive as possible.
8 A quick reminder, simplifying: AQL is the difference between the time spent having fun and the time spent having your balls busted.
9 Let us see what we need:
10 1) Physical freedom.
11 Man is born labelled a “social animal”, shut away in pigeonholes, one on top of the other and one beside the other.
12 Then he is crammed into “classrooms” full of schoolmates, and starts worshipping Anubis.
13 Then he is crammed into an office, a family and so on... which doesn't even let him appreciate the idea of “freedom”.
14 First he is “managed” by his parents, then by a spouse, later indirectly by his children, and he typically dies without ever having had a moment to reflect on what freedom might be.
15 The pressure of the “social” is so strong and comes from so many sides that it stops him working out, I won't say his own ontological meaning, but at least the fact that man is first and foremost an individual.
16 Society is simply the sum of individuals.
17 There is no micro-individual or macro-individual (society), there are only lots of individuals, where each one is responsible first of all for himself, then for the rest.
18 Living in a cluster of humans is a way of limiting your own freedom in exchange for services, work and company.
19 Did you ever, by any chance, choose to limit your freedom in order to live in a cluster of humans? No? And yet it is a choice.
20 You didn't choose to be born and you won't choose to die, but everything else you ought to be able to choose.
21 This pattern of life ought to be a carefully weighed destination, yet for most humans it is normal and unavoidable.
22 Thinking it unavoidable to be crammed into a classroom or the underground is the surest way to wreck your AQL.
23 That is because if you grasp that what you do is (almost) always a choice, you will put up with the loss of freedom.
24 If, on the other hand, you feel every moment you live as something imposed, you will end up worshipping Anubis flat out with no chance of changing anything.
25 If you see living in a block of flats as a choice, you won't spend your life hating the neighbours because they are “a nuisance”.
26 The same goes for whoever treads on your feet on the underground, or the Dim Soul colleague who “busts your balls” about football.
27 If you are aware of the choice, you are also aware that to be part of a group you have to live and let live.
28 2) Religious and ideological freedom.
29 All humans grow up with mental impositions, whether religious or ideological.
30 Religion and ideologies are the same thing.
31 The monotheistic religions were all born by exploiting people's need to find an answer to the fear of death.
32 The good Anubist knows he is nothing special, so he doesn't worry about such things, waiting without anguish to become a libation for worms.
33 Living in fear of death does not let you live free.
34 The film “V for Vendetta” was not about revolution as such: before the “revolution” you have to be free from the fear of dying.
35 Stoicism, existentialism and Buddhism have all tackled the question philosophically:
36 “It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.” Epictetus
37 It was not evil intentions but the fear of death that built a system based first on physical slavery and then on economic slavery.
38 If the first man ever enslaved had fought back at the cost of his life (“Give me liberty, or give me death!”
39 P. Henry) slavery would never have existed.
40 Religions owe their success to the promise of some other form of life, which of course cannot be verified.
41 Throughout history, religions and ideologies have either joined forces or waged war on each other, taking turns in power.
42 Depending on where you were born and the historical context, you have had a religion or an ideology imposed on you, or both.
43 Every eight-billionth of humanity (a human being) is convinced that his god is the true one and everyone else worships the wrong one.
44 So anyone not born where he was born, when he was born, worships the wrong god.
45 Every so often he butchers another human who was told the very same thing, in the name of his own god or his own ideology.
46 And this is supposed to be civilisation.
47 If an individual is conditioned by the religions or ideologies imposed on him when he was young, he can never be free.
48 Back to what we said before: it is you who must choose to be free or to be conditioned by religions or ideologies, you are the one acting.
49 If you refuse to understand that what was put in your head as a child is indoctrination, and to work at removing it, you will never be free.
Can't be bothered to make the effort?
50 Understandable, but it's your choice.
51 If you understand that it is your choice, you will also understand that, in the name of your indoctrination, you should not harm others; in fact, you shouldn't do anything at all, because not being free, you would be sure to get it wrong.
52 If, on the other hand, at some point in your life you decide to join a religion or ideology freely and knowingly, you can also make sure it doesn't do too much harm, since you can presumably understand its limits.
53 The problem is always being aware that you are giving up your freedom.
54 The Prophet, however, recommends joining Anubism, because it certainly does no harm.
55 3) Freedom from oppression.
56 Even with religious or ideological structures removed, there is no getting round the fact that living among other people today means putting up with the oppression of some “state”.
57 We have already said enough on that.
58 Removing the power of state people over us seems very hard.
59 At the very least, though, it would help to understand that the state does not exist, it is not a god.
60 The state is just some people who, within certain geographical borders, use violence to take possession of our goods.
61 Before you spend your life worshipping Anubis over how intrusive and crooked the state you live in is, you need to understand that this too is a choice: you decided to hand your freedom to an overbearing state rather than leave.
62 Leaving isn't easy, but it is possible; it is a choice.
63 If you decide to stay, for whatever reason, and you understand that being oppressed by Tom, Dick or Harry is your choice, you will stop hating them and avoid pointlessly ruining your AQL.
64 4) Relational freedom.
65 Freedom is not exactly the absence of ties, but the ability to choose your ties and interactions consciously.
66 Being able to enter and leave relationships without coercion is a form of relational freedom.
67 If you marry or move in together you will never be free, because you will be signing a “relational obligation”: giving up three quarters of your freedom, you will worship Anubis day in, day out.
68 For a smile, recall that Valéry wrote: “God made man, and finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly.”
69 Naturally it works the other way round too, because the tragedy lies not in the sex but in the obligation.
70 If, and only if, your choice to marry, giving up at least three quarters of your freedom, is made consciously and in complete freedom, can it make any sense.
71 Otherwise you will only do harm to yourself and your partner, each now the other's slave.
72 The good Anubist knows that the peaks of loneliness are reached far more easily in company than alone, so he doesn't marry to avoid “feeling lonely”.
73 Having children is not an obligation, and it is certainly the greatest act of enslavement a human can perform on himself: go ahead and have them, but be aware that for the next twenty years, at the very least, you will no longer be free.
Is this what you want?
74 Because if you are aware of it you can be a good parent, and your loss of freedom will become an investment in a new life; otherwise you will do harm.
75 If you face life consciously and freely, you will also avoid doing something as fucking stupid as killing your wife or your husband.
76 Whoever does something that stupid is not just a murderer, he is an idiot murderer, because he is simply someone looking for somebody to blame for his own “non-choices”.
77 Can't stand your spouse any more? Choose to divorce.
78 “It was your choice, so what do you want now?
79 You've become just like one of us... and how you miss the days when you were a puppet with no strings...”
80 The Prophet recommends listening again to one of Edoardo Bennato's masterpieces: “È stata tua la colpa” (“It was your fault”).
81 Despite all these reflections, you just can't avoid frequent Anubistic adorations because you feel “boxed in” with no way out.
82 Is your AQL deep in the red?
83 In the next chapter we will see what can be done.