Joshua Becker writes about his visit to Poland, where he spoke on minimalism and had some incredible encounters. After his talk, Darek, the organizer of the conference he was participating in, shared this during the question/answer session:

“Joshua, can I tell you more about why I invited you here today? When I was younger, I had an important mentor. He was a survivor of Auschwitz who would live almost his entire existence in an occupied Poland—first by the Germans and then by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

“This man once made an observation to me I have never forgotten. After a trip he had taken to Western Europe, he pulled me aside and said: ‘I have come to realize that materialism holds people captive in many the same ways Communism does. Communism, by force, seeks to destroy personal identity. Materialism does the same. But materialism destroys personal identity by choice.’

“And that is why I wanted you here today. To inspire us, both as individuals and as a society, to not use our newfound freedom to acquire further bondage.”

Minimalism is an important message. It frees up our most important resources to pursue things that matter. …

Freedom is a gift. But our freedom is only as valuable as what we choose to pursue with it.

In its own way, this encapsulates the great risk of liberty that we asked for from our Creator, specifically the risk that in our freedom, we can destroy our personal identity by own our choice—not in a materialistic sense, but in the transcendent sense.

That’s what Christians understand hell to be: the warped self, victim of its own passions and enslavements, and alone with ego as a corrosive force rather than the creator and the balm of love.

At least, that’s how I think of it.