Some Context
I don't claim to be an expert on freedom in any imaginable way. I have an ever-growing collection of dog-eared pages in books, photos of book pages, and screen shots of articles that are relevant to the subject, but my interest in freedom has never grown into a deliberate study. I’ve used what I’ve learned to create a simple framework for making decisions, but even that lacks structure. My intention with these posts is to dig deeper into specific areas within the broader subject, as well as explore freedom at a high level.
In contrast to my weekly Market Notes, these posts will be less frequent and not regularly scheduled. I also want them to be a lot shorter. I plan to use the first entry or two to tell the story of how my interest in freedom came to be, and then do short format quick hits on freedom related topics. I’m not entirely sure where this will take me, but I’m confident the breadcrumbs along the path will be easy enough to find.
A Seed is Planted
In the spring of 1995, I went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with my dad, step-mom, and sister for April vacation. I was 13. Our family didn’t have much money so the fact that we flew somewhere during a break from school made it a special trip. Even still, I don’t remember if there was a specific reason why we went to South Carolina that year.
Most trips with my dad were road trips around New England spent at camp grounds and bed and breakfasts. My step-mom wasn’t too keen on camping for days on end so the nights spent sleeping outside in cheap, leaky tents on cheap, leaky air mattresses were often book-ended by a few nights indoors. If it had been up to me, we’d have stayed at roadside motels with HBO. Since my dad and step-mom couldn’t pass up the opportunity to save a few bucks with the added bonus of befriending an elderly couple who decided to spend their retirement eating breakfast with strangers, we stayed at bed and breakfasts.1
I have plenty of memories from those trips although I couldn’t tell you exactly where we were in any of them. We did a hike once where we passed through a narrow rock formation nicknamed The Lemon Squeezer. After the hike, I got a black t-shirt with fluorescent yellow bolded writing that said, “You got squeezed in the lemon squeezer!” New Hampshire, maybe?
One time my dad got all pissed off when we were in a campground bathroom and a guy left the hot water running while shaving. My dad spent the walk back to our tent muttering on about, “…selfish people wasting hot water like that…someone’s gotta pay for that hot water…what a jerk that guy is…entitlement at its worst…don’t grow up to be like that guy…” Western Mass?
When I was first going through puberty, my dad and I were showering in an open shower at a campground and he said to me, “I hope you don’t think you get any extra shampoo just because you’ve got a few pubes now.” Vermont?
I grew up on Cape Cod, an arm shaped piece of land that juts out into the ocean from mainland Massachusetts, so I’m confident the trip to coastal South Carolina was not an escape to the beach. Whatever the reason for going, I don’t remember much from that vacation except for the night we went to the movies.
At the time, MTV was a major network and the source of much of my pop culture education. They had a lineup of shows in the afternoon geared towards kids who were home from school, likely unattended. I remember watching a behind-the-scenes special on the making of the movie Braveheart during one of those shows. The host of the special was on set to interview Mel Gibson and was slotted in as an extra in one of the battle scenes. The scale was impressive but I didn’t think about the movie again until a few months later during that April break in S.C. when, one night, my dad told us we were going to see Braveheart. Unfortunately, the anticipated embarrassment of having to smuggle snacks into the theater in my step-mom’s purse muted any excitement I had about actually seeing the movie.
Comfortably in ours seats and grateful for the cover of darkness, the popcorn-stuffed purse began its procession up and down the four-person assembly line of early teenage shame. I had no idea I was about to spend the next three hours pinned to my seat trying to process what I was feeling in my gut and chest.
Even though it was nearly 30 years ago, there is plenty from that night that stands out to me, but it was the intensity of Wallace’s devotion to this intangible concept of freedom that really left a mark (obviously). It was also the crescendo of that intensity, culminating in his final moments alive, that made it so powerful.
The idea of Scotland’s independence was introduced early on in the movie, but it sat simmering in the background while I got distracted by the development of the early love story. When Murron’s throat was graphically slit, her life nonchalantly cast away to set an example, I wrongly assumed the movie had shifted from a love story to a revenge story. Once Wallace’s initial retaliation was complete, I started to realize my error.
Keep in mind, I was 13 at the time so heightened emotions were not in short supply, but I spent the rest of the movie feeling like I was strapped to the mast of a schooner caught in a hurricane. It was wave after ever-growing wave of conflict followed by short windows of reprieve before the pressure would begin to rebuild.
The rollercoaster of watching Wallace lose his father, brother, and wife, find renewed purpose in liberating Scotland, overcome insurmountable odds in battle, face devastating personal deceptions, find hope in new allegiances, and on and on and on, was utterly exhausting. By the time Wallace was stretched limb-to-limb about to be filleted open, my tank was empty and I was ready for it all to be over so I (and Wallace) could be at peace. Yet, just as I was accepting Wallace’s demise, the emotions from the past three hours came flooding back as he screamed his final word, “Freedom!” Time stopped. I was stunned, floored, speechless, overwhelmed, devastated, relieved, heartbroken, lost, hopeful, awestruck, humbled, despondent, and enlivened all in an instant. And what stood out so clearly to me in that singular moment was not just his profound commitment to one idea but that the idea was freedom.2
I spent the car ride back to the bed and breakfast staring out the window in shock. Lying in bed that night, I couldn’t clear the image of Wallace screaming “Freedom!” from my mind. I dreamed about the movie and woke up feeling just as shaken.
Within a week or two, the acuteness had worn off, but I sought out the soundtrack the first chance I got. Not too long after, I found a second version of the soundtrack and bought that one, too. I listened to the music over and over again, re-experiencing the emotions whenever I put on my headphones and pushed play on my portable CD player. The soundtracks became part of my pre-game ritual before every soccer, hockey, and baseball game I played. The music allowed me to tap into a reservoir of emotions, which proved helpful when I needed to compete.
Braveheart never slipped to “just another movie” status, but it took a few decades before I traced the lineage of my interest in freedom back to that evening in the theater. Then, in 2020, while exploring past themes in my life in an attempt to gain some clarity on potential pathways into the future, it all came together.
After I made the connection in 2020, I devoted some time to revisiting experiences in which the subject of freedom was prominent or I felt an expansion of freedom in my life. I was surprised by how vivid and varied the memories were and how quickly they came back to me. One clear memory ties directly to the name of this publication.
At the time, I was in my mid-20s living in Washington, D.C. I was three or four years into my career and had been working through the idea of leaving my job to start a business. One weekend, I decided to head south on a roadtrip to clear my head and get some space.
Anyone who has driven from D.C. towards Richmond, Virginia is likely familiar with the large King’s Dominion theme park sign you can see from the highway. As I passed the sign lost in thought about what to do with my life, my mind subconsciously took the words ‘king’s dominion’, compressed them into ‘kingdom,’ and then jumped to the word ‘freedom.’ My conscious mind snapped to attention as I thought to myself, “If a kingdom is the dominion of the king, then freedom is the dominion of the free.” Now, I realize the etymology of kingdom and freedom says this isn’t the case, but in that moment, I suddenly saw a path in front of me with a clear destination at its end. From then on, I started to view my life as a journey into freedom.
With that clarity in hand, it wasn’t long before I did decide to leave my job to start my first business and embark on this pursuit and exploration of freedom. Fifteen years and multiple businesses and major life evolutions later, the curiosity remains. It’s this curiosity that has brought me to this platform where I hope to add structure to my thinking, share what I’ve uncovered along my journey, and learn from others who are thoughtfully navigating their own life’s journey.
As always, thank you for reading The Free Dominion. If there are any topics related to freedom that interest you, please let me know. I really would love for this to become a conversation.
There are undoubtedly bed and breakfast owners throughout New England who have been getting birthday cards every year from my dad after he stayed with them for a single night in the ‘90s.
Considering Braveheart’s commercial and critical success, I openly acknowledge that my experience was not likely very unique.