It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

— Michel de Montaigne

CREATIVITY

WHAT THIS MEANS

Whatever arrangement you are outside of looks like relief, and whatever you are inside of looks like confinement. Both views are honest and both are partial. From outside you see the benefits and not the daily cost; from inside you feel the cost and have stopped noticing the benefits. Wanting in and wanting out are often the same restlessness pointed different ways.

List what someone outside your current situation would envy about it. Then ask whether the thing you want to move toward would look the same from within. If that is unclear, the trouble may be the restlessness rather than the arrangement.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

Whose life looks like freedom to you from outside it?

MORE IN PARADOX, METAPHOR & FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Free, with nothing to buy inside it.