Freedom of options, money or time are worthy goals for a lot of people. Philosopher and writer Simone de Beauvoir had other things on her mind. Other desires. "I am fully aware and in full possession of myself. I have no desire to be understood, admired, pitied, or even known," she wrote in the Diary of a Philosophy Student: Volume 1, 1926–1927. She thought it was the "highest form of existence." In her memoir, she describes a younger version of herself: curious about everything, interested in everything, refusing all limitation. She thought that was freedom. Turns out she was onto something important for a great life.
The hunger to be known, validated, admired, and understood at all costs is a symptom of not knowing yourself. Most people build their whole lives around that desire. The minute you are in full possession of yourself, your best life ceases to depend on someone else's attention. You stop waiting for the room to confirm you. People with that kind of self-awareness are very present. They just are. In their full selves. De Beauvoir's refusal to want pity is fidelity to reality. It's choosing to experience her life as it is, rather than as it looks to someone watching. If you don't need to be understood, you can't be easily controlled.
The most important things about you are probably the things no one knows. Your personal thoughts, desires, passions. And the private grief you've never found language for.
The things you love but people think are "weird."
These things are you.
Maybe more than anything you've ever successfully told anyone. "You do not need to be loved, not at the cost of yourself. The single relationship that is truly central and crucial in a life is the relationship to the self. Of all the people you will know in a lifetime, you are the only one you will never lose," says writer Jo Coudert. When you have no "desire to be understood, admired, pitied, or even known," you make room and space for yourself to exist in those places. You stop trying to translate the untranslatable. And stop shrinking the irreducible into something someone else can understand. De Beauvoir thought it was the very meaning of freedom. Because you're no longer abandoned by others' misunderstanding.
You're just complete.
Needing to be understood puts your interior life in other people's hands. It makes your sense of self something that gets ratified from outside. You submit yourself and wait. The hunger to be understood at all costs is also a hunger to be certain. Certain that you're okay. Certain that you exist, properly, in someone else's mind. But that certainty was always going to be borrowed. It expires. The next difficult conversation, the next misunderstanding, the next person who just doesn't get it, and you're back to zero. De Beauvoir's answer was to become yours. Curious about everything. Interested in everything. Refusing all limitation including the limitations of other people's definitions of you.
But it takes work.
You don't arrive at that kind of freedom through discipline alone. You have to know what you think. What you value. What makes you restless. Everything you believe or want for yourself but haven't spoken of because you're still not sure if it's acceptable.
Not needing to be understood means you've done the work inside. You know what you think. You know what you value. You know what you've been through and what it meant. You don't need anyone to sign off on it. That means you live from a from abundance. Not need. You give your attention freely. You're not spending it desperately trying to extract something back. If you're comfortable with being misunderstood, your energy has focus to explore life. To read widely. And experiment. To change your mind. You take risks that don't make sense to others. You build a life that feels true but not necessarily impressive to others.
People can have the wrong impression of you.
And you won't spend all your life trying to make them like you. The highest form of existence is being so fully with yourself that you don't need the translation. You don't need the admiration to feel worth admiring. You don't need the understanding to know what you mean. You don't need the audience to make the experience real. You're already real. Completely irreducibly real. That's it. You are just present in your own life. Most people spend years trying to be understood. They want their partners, parents, and colleagues get them. And somewhere in all that explaining, they forget to just be the thing they're trying to explain.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation," Oscar Wilde said. Ralph Waldo Emerson could not be more right. "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." The world will always try to pull you in.
Protecting your "self" is the work.
I like what Carl Jung said, "The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are." The irony is, people with that kind of self-possession are usually the most interesting ones in the room. There's a gravitational quality to a person who needs nothing from you. You lean in. You get curious. You want to understand them. Which means de Beauvoir's highest form of existence might be what makes you most worth understanding. But that's beside the point. You do this for you. Not for the outcome. Nobody can give you that freedom. The freedom to just be is yours to nurture. If nobody fully understood your path, would you still walk it? That's the life test. The minute your best life stops depending on someone else's attention, you're free. Maybe that's the highest form of existence after all.
"When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you." ― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching