The best things in life are not free

Richard Stallman, figurehead of the free software movement, has been driving it home all his life. The free in free software does not mean free of charge. It stands for freedom. Free as in freedom, not as in free parking or beer. You do not have to pay or ask permission to use it. You’re used to EULAs that nobody reads from the likes of Microsoft or Apple, but also in free software the rules of the game are laid down in a license. Free parking does not mean that you can dump your car anywhere.

‘Being free of something’ means that you lack something negative or annoying. Free of worries, or the obligation to pay. That is why free also means the formal gratis. And to that narrow meaning we owe the cliché that the best things in life are free.

Only they’re not. You cannot put a price on what makes life worth living and neither can you buy it. Nor can the greatest misery in life ever be bought off. But money can help. It doesn’t make you happy, but no money at all will surely make you unhappy. Health is a genetic lottery, but statistically it does your life expectancy no good to grow up in a poor neighbourhood.

Adjust the statement somewhat and it sounds more plausible. What you can buy for money does not bring the greatest satisfaction in life. Those are the things you’re proud of and they cost effort, time and dedication. Otherwise you would have no reason to be proud of them. You can’t click on them for overnight delivery. A long time ago my father joked that he would gladly pay ten thousand guilders if a magic spell could make him play the piano like me. As a teenager he had taken some lessons, but his busy work and family life did not leave him the energy or time to make it a serious hobby. I wasn’t and have never become an accomplished musician by professional standard. I admire the ones who play so much better than myself, and I am at most a little jealous. Because even the greatest talents have paid a high price.

But the mighty machine of marketing and advertising tries to sell you a different story every second of the day. They sell you the threadbare deception that you can have life satisfaction delivered by DHL. And don’t all influencers and our general obsession with celebrity convey anything other than that there is an instant route to fame and fortune? Don’t fall for it. For the readers over fifty: remember how every episode of Fame started? “Fame costs, and right here’s where you start paying. In sweat.”