Freedom

I camped at Green Brier Island for ten days in May. Dr Ekkens was the professor and I was one of 11 students. Every day we studied wild flowers in the Smoky Mountains, for Greenbrier Island was just outside Great Smoky Mountain National park.

A concrete bathroom and shower house sat near the campground entrance, out in the open with lots closely mown grass all around. It was pleasant to walk over there when the sun was shining, even if management wasn't too particular about missing a day of cleaning. It was during walks to and from this all important concrete destination that I laid plans to write a book about freedom. Salient outlines of my plan coalesced with no apparent pattern, mainly because my ruminations never lasted longer than my trips. Among other things, writing up my journal, making a fire, eating, and socializing were automatically higher priorities upon my return. I would speed hike the Appalachian trail, devastate the Hobbesian view of government, combining both endeavors with a fast paced travelogue of my experiences hiking through most of the original colonies. I would juxtapose blisters, bears, and back aches with my quest for freedom's essence, soothing post modern angst with insights from both.

It is June now, and my life is far too hectic to seriously rethink my overall outline. I just need to decide whether the outline will become my consuming passion for the next year, or simply a curious idea, cooked up on sunny walks to the privy of Green Brier Island.
At any rate, I've done some work on the philosophical presuppositions for the book, and hope to post them here for review later this summer. As some might guess from my earlier work on original thought, I understand freedom to be centered in the interplay between the individual and the community.