The philosopher and spiritual teacher Jason Gregory shared a reflection on identity and freedom in a post on LinkedIn, emphasizing the Taoist view that resilience comes not through control but through surrender.

“True freedom is the act of letting go and letting be, nature’s way of noninterference, wu-wei,” said Gregory. “When we pursue our identity, building more layers upon it, we will likely never know or abide in our true free nature.”

Gregory explained that Taoist resilience emerges from harmony with the flow of life. When individuals resist or attempt to control the “river of the Tao,” they suffer. But when they yield, allowing life to unfold without grasping or clinging, they return to their natural state — one that is inherently free.

According to Gregory, the Taoist sage does not strive to be free in the conventional sense. Instead, they let go of the very concept of freedom, recognizing it as a linguistic construct rooted in duality. By dissolving identity and boundaries, the sage finds themselves in unity with all life, where separation — and struggle — cease to exist.

From this perspective, resilience is not about fortifying the self but transcending it. “Freedom from ‘something’ is an illusion,” Gregory wrote, “bound to those who suffer from the border of their identity.”

Jason Gregory is a philosopher and author whose work explores Eastern philosophy, Taoism, and spiritual freedom. His upcoming book, The Tradition of Natural Taoism, is available for pre-order here.