On Freedom

Snyder recalls reading ancient Greek myths and literature in childhood and travelling with his family, arguing that these experiences trained his imagination toward movement and discovery. At 14 in Costa Rica’s Monteverde cloud forest, he and his brothers follow a local guide, Ian, to a hidden waterfall with a cave behind the falls, an experience he links to autonomy and adventure. That night, he overhears Quaker neighbors debating whether a forest path is a public “right of way,” a phrase he hears as “right away,” fusing the ideas of lawful access and immediacy and settling in his mind as an early figure of freedom of movement. He later returns to Costa Rica and observes how the nation’s policy choices, geared toward protecting wilderness, developing renewable energy, and offering universal health care, correlate with longer life, higher freedom scores, and greater happiness than in the United States despite the country’s far lower GDP.

Snyder defines mobility as the third form of freedom: movement through space and time (and among values), dependent on collective supports like food, water, hygiene, health care, safety, parks and paths, roads and rails. Mobility allows people to make something of their bodies, but it depends on collective effort.