{"id":19,"date":"2010-01-20T23:32:56","date_gmt":"2010-01-20T23:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=19"},"modified":"2010-01-20T23:32:56","modified_gmt":"2010-01-20T23:32:56","slug":"what-on-earth-am-i-doing-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/20\/what-on-earth-am-i-doing-here\/","title":{"rendered":"What on earth am I doing here?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, pretty much the same thing I always do when I&#8217;m not in work-avoidance mode: writing about my old favorite topic, personal freedom.<\/p>\n<p>The name of the blog says it all. The writings here will be about &#8220;living freedom&#8221; in our own lives (rather than waiting or fighting for it to be politically bestowed). The blog&#8217;s name also says that freedom is a living thing. Okay, not a &#8220;living and breathing&#8221; thing like a dog or cat or you or me. But freedom will live as long as human beings breathe. <\/p>\n<p>As <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Viktor_Frankl\" target=\"_blank\">Viktor Frankl<\/a> made so eloquently clear, freedom can live in individual hearts and express itself in action even in concentration camps and gulags. Surely, no matter what political atrocities our politicians commit, we have the capacity to be and feel more free than they ever intend to &#8220;allow.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Politics is a great game. More exciting than the average Super Bowl. Watching Scott Brown come out of nowhere this week to whup the arrogant Martha Coakley in Massachusetts &#8212; and perhaps throw a monkey wrench into that <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rube_Goldberg_machine\" target=\"_blank\">Rube Goldberg contraption<\/a> of a health-care bill &#8212; was a hellacious hoot.  (Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=E5VLeBhzE3Y\" target=\"_blank\">a hysterical &#8220;Downfall&#8221; video of it, too.<\/a>) But Scott Brown is just another politician. R, D, liberal, conservative. Doesn&#8217;t matter in the long run. The only &#8220;answers&#8221; <i>any<\/i> mainstream politicians have are: more government, more spending, and more control.<\/p>\n<p>And we know how well <i>that&#8217;s<\/i> been working out, don&#8217;t we?<\/p>\n<p>We are our own best hope for freedom. Sure, &#8220;do politics&#8221; if it interests you. But the most important work we&#8217;ll ever do is creating freedom in our own lives even if the world goes all to heck around us.<\/p>\n<p>Unless we&#8217;re already pure-hearted saints of liberty (and I don&#8217;t know about you, but I&#8217;m not), that often means changing ourselves &#8212; our habits, our attitudes, our assumptions, our actions, whatever. And it seems that most people would rather do almost anything but that.<\/p>\n<p>But I think <i>Backwoods Home<\/i> people are different than that. Better. You guys out there are already oriented toward changing your lives, being more independent, and thinking out of the box.<\/p>\n<p>So here we go. Glad to be with you. Wish us all luck &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, pretty much the same thing I always do when I&#8217;m not in work-avoidance mode: writing about my old favorite topic, personal freedom. The name of the blog says it all. The writings here will be about &#8220;living freedom&#8221; in our own lives (rather than waiting or fighting for it to be politically bestowed). The blog&#8217;s name also says that freedom is a living thing. Okay, not a &#8220;living and breathing&#8221; thing like a dog or cat or you or me. But freedom will live as long as human beings breathe. As Viktor Frankl made so eloquently clear, freedom can&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/20\/what-on-earth-am-i-doing-here\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">What on earth am I doing here?<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","category-poly-ticks","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}