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 filename = 2022-08-26-freedom-and-camping.html
 title = Freedom and Camping
 description = A reflection on the true meaning of freedom by the example of my favorite activity: camping.
 created = 2022-08-26
 updated = 2022-08-26
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 <p>
 Since I was a boy I've been a fan of the outdoors, and particularly of camping.
 Perhaps one of the most influential experiences of my life was when I worked
 with the Conservation Corps in 2014, where I spent a whole month primarily
 sleeping in a tent. What influenced my love of the outdoors might've been the
 days I would spend up at my grandfather's house, in Northern Minnesota, where
 although, for as long as I can remember, he had a nice house that was rather
 comfortable, but most of our time was actually spent outside: around the lake,
 amongst the trees. Some times, if there was a family reunion and all the
 bedrooms were used up, we'd sleep outside in a tent; something I always found to
 be rather exciting. Yet there's something else, something so particular to the
 outdoors, and later on camping specifically, that I loved so much: freedom.
 </p>
 <p>
 I think most of us, whether we like camping or not, recognize that there is a
 certain freedom in it. Those of us who love camping will even go so far as to
 say that we are more free while camping than we are in the city. And this
 statement, again, even to those who may not particularly like camping, can still
 intuitively be recognized as something coherent. There seems to be some
 intuitive recognition that being so exposed to a natural environment grants us
 more freedom. But what do we mean by this? What do we mean by <i>freedom</i>?
 </p>
 <p>
 Normally, in our contemporary society, when someone is asked what freedom is,
 the response is typically something along the lines of having more choices. The
 Oxford Dictionary defines freedom as "The power or right to act, speak, or think
 as one wants." (def. 1). So by this definition, the more choices one has
 available to do what one wishes to do, the more <em>free</em> one is. Yet, by
 this criteria what grants us more freedom should be the city, where we have many
 more options as to what we can do with our time and resources. In contrast,
 while camping we're extremely limited in what we can do, and we're forced to do
 things in such a way that it adapts to our surroundings. How could this be? Is
 our intuition failing us? Some may believe so, but I would like to propose
 another solution to this contradiction: what's mistaken isn't our intuition, but
 our definition.
 </p>
 <p>
 Let's begin with a short mental exercise demonstrating the flaws of the
 previously mentioned definition. Imagine that you are given a list of things you
 can do: a very long list. But all of these things are bad -e.g. rob a store,
 murder an old woman, eat nails, etc. There are thousands of these sorts of
 options on the list. Now imagine that instead you are given a <em>much</em>
 smaller list with only three possibilities: read a book, play a musical
 instrument, or watch a movie. While the first list is considerably longer, we
 intuitively consider the second to grant us more freedom than the first. Thus we
 can conclude that freedom is not only about the number of options available to
 us, but also the quality of the options. Thus no amount of bad options can make
 us more free. It is only by providing good options that we become more free.
 </p>
 <p>
 The question then becomes: what can we consider a <i>good option</i>? Basing
 oneself on the Oxford definition provided previously, one may say that a good
 option is simply that which one <em>wants</em>. Here, however, we come across
 what seems to be a subjectivist bias: something is good because I perceive it as
 good; the goodness of an option depends on the subject that perceives it, not on
 the object (the option) itself. Yet this seems to conflict, again, with our
 intuition once we bring out some examples. If someone wishes to murder someone
 else, it is not a restriction of their freedom for society to forbid such an
 action, and even restrain him should he try to do it. One may claim that
 infringing upon the freedom of another does not constitute as a good choice, but
 this only brings us onto more shaky ground, as we enter a circular definition of
 freedom:
 </p>
 <blockquote>
 	Freedom is the ability to make good choices. Good choices are things that I
 	want which don't infringe upon the freedom of others. Thus freedom is the
 	ability to do things that we want to do which do not infringe upon the
 	freedom of others.
 </blockquote>
 <p>
 Notice how in the concluding definition the term "freedom" appears in its own
 definition. This is the problem, for it begs the question: what is the freedom
 of the other? And so we enter into this infinite loop. Yet, even conceding to
 this ridiculous definition, we still have a very big problem: goodness is
 defined by subjective desire -i.e. <i>want</i>. To rebut the idea, one need only
 consider the case of the masochist. Is it infringing upon the freedom of the
 masochist to torture him? On what basis? After all, it is something that he
 desires, and thus is it not a part of his own freedom <em>and</em> the freedom
 of he who tortures the masochist? Would it not be tyrannical, under such a
 definition, to impede and deter people of a society from such behaviour? As we
 can see, such a definition is, quite simply, absurd.
 </p>
 <p>
 So now we are left with the question: what truly is freedom then? I would argue
 that freedom is the ability to do that which contributes to a greater
 realization of oneself in accordance to one's nature -which, in our case, is
 human. I do not wish to get too caught up in this, since it derails into a
 subject which isn't the point of this article, but the gist is that all beings
 have a <i>nature</i> that is fundamentally a part of them. The more a being
 partakes in its nature, the more <i>good</i> that being is. Yet, a being that
 is, for one reason or another, incapable of partaking in its nature is
 <i>bad</i> in the sense that it is bad for it to lack the ability, while it is
 not considered bad that a being cannot partake in something contrary or outside
 its nature. For example, if a pig cannot fly we do not consider that there is
 anything wrong with the pig because flying is not a part of its nature, yet we
 do believe there is something wrong with a pig that cannot <i>oink</i>, for pigs
 are supposed to <i>oink</i>, and there is something bad, therefore, about this
 pig such that it cannot <i>oink</i>. With this in mind, a good choice for the
 pig would be to roll in the mud to cool off, while a bad choice would be to try
 to bark. [For further study, look into the philosophy of Aristotle and St.
 Thomas Aquinas.]
 </p>
 <p>
 With all this being said, we return to the beginning of this article: why do we
 feel as though a natural environment (or camping) gives us more freedom than an
 urban one where we have more choices? The first thing we could look at is the
 <em>quality</em> of the choices we have in both scenarios.
 </p>
 <p>
 One thing to consider is that, as redundant as it sounds, a natural environment
 is more conducive towards the beings in that environment acting in accordance to
 their nature. Although you can do things which are bad in a natural environment,
 the choices you have available to you are mostly good: they conduce towards your
 thriving as a human being -e.g. cooking, preparing shelter, washing. One may
 also notice that these activities are more rudimentary and primal. When in such
 a natural environment we spend more time on things which are of necessity -which
 will be conducive towards our flourishing- and not as much on other sorts of
 activities which may or may not be good. Meanwhile, if we consider the life in
 the city, these rudimentary and primal tasks are actually made extremely
 convenient. The most difficult thing is working a job that will pay for it.
 Aside from that, there seems to be way more options, but many of these aren't
 necessarily conducive to human flourishing -e.g. ample access to pornography,
 prostitution, mindless video-gaming or television consumption, poverty that
 encourages crime, etc. One may argue that in the city one also has more choices
 to do things which lead to human thriving via certain infrastructures like
 libraries, the web, and sports facilities (to name a few); and I'm not
 necessarily claiming that it's impossible to live a fulfilling human life in the
 city either, nor that there aren't more possibilities in the city. The problem,
 however, is that these possibilities for human thriving -which are numerous- are
 entangled with the possibilities for human depravation. So while it's undeniable
 that in the city there are more opportunities for human growth (in one's
 humanity), at the same time this is amidst the numerous temptations to depravity
 which seek to enslave you. Therefore, one feels more free in an environment
 without the imposition of these depraved temptations, even if the opportunities
 for growth are objectively less in number.
 </p>
 <p>
 Another problem with the vast amount of choices that we are given in the city,
 and the reason why having more good choices doesn't necessarily make us more
 free, is that we may become overburdened with choice. It's a documented
 phenomenon that too many choices seems to make us miserable and unable to make
 any decisions.<sup><a href="#r1" >[1]</a></sup> Because of this, compared to an
 environment like the city, where we're overburdened not just with good choices,
 but also all the bad ones we have to sift through -to greater or lesser
 success-, a natural environment while out camping seems much more liberating, as
 we are freed precisely from having to consider so many choices. It's simpler, if
 you would, and that simplicity helps us to more easily make decisions based upon
 a more limited list of options, more of which lead to our self-realization as
 human beings.
 </p>
 <p>
 From a religious perspective, it is perhaps best to compare to what we
 Christians understand as Man's greatest worldly state: Adam &amp; Eve in the
 Garden of Eden. In this state, we consider that Man was most free. In this story
 most people will point to the existence of the Tree of Knowledge of Good &amp;
 Evil as the source of Man's freedom; and, to an extent, they're not wrong.
 However, this is very commonly misinterpreted to mean that God giving Man the
 ability to do evil itself was what gave Man freedom. But the true freedom of God
 giving Man this choice wasn't the choice to do evil, but the ability to be
 virtuous in obedience to God. God gave Man this ability to do evil because
 through it Man could display greater virtue than he could have otherwise. The
 ability to do evil was not necessary for freedom, as Adam &amp; Eve already had
 this. The ability to do evil was only necessary to bring about a greater good:
 faith.
 </p>
 <p>
 I would like to clarify that none of my prior reasoning is to say that it is
 impossible to live a virtuous life in the city. Nor that in the wilderness one
 will necessarily become a saint. My point is to clarify the understanding of
 what it means to be free by means of example of what seems to be a commonly
 shared human experience. With this knowledge, we can hopefully live better
 lives, regardless of our current location of residence, by aiming to achieve
 true freedom amidst all that which attempts to enslave us.
 </p>
 <ol class="refs" >
 	<li>
 		<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90366816/why-having-too-many-choices-is-a-bad-thing" >
 			"Why having too many choices makes us miserable" on Fast Company
 		</a>
 	</li>
 </ol>