Rose Wilder Lane - Moxie Champion

More than 6 years I've been researching political movements and history. I've been reading books written in the late 1930's - to the 1970's in a sort of quest to understand history as it unfolded, through the eyes of people as they were experiencing it.

I'd had a quote about freedom from Rose Wilder Lane tucked in the quote book I created from quotes that struck me along the way as I read.

I knew Lane was the daughter of Laura Ingalls; however, I didn't know she was considered one of the "mothers" of the  Libertarian party.

I started to read her book, The Discover of Freedom, yesterday, June 2. I was amazed at how my thoughts and feelings and ideas imitate Lane's - and yet, I'd had no idea she was such a political (and fiction writer) phenom.

This is what makes me sad about the years I spent doing mind numbing, soul crushing, things; parties, bars, movies, days spent lost watching TV shows (Ok, Friends was not really a loss because we all need a few breaks now and then), reading fiction - and in the last few years: getting hopelessly lost on Facebook (do I really need to spend 45 minutes looking at the 'wall' of people that are friends of friends?).

I keep working on a few different projects and have one major project that I keep refining, re-tuning. It is full of big ideas - big ideas that are very simple. I just wasn't sure how to whittle them down and explain them in relate-able language.

And then I stumbled on Rose Wilder Lane (who's quote had been with me for years, I simply did not seek out information on her nor the book it came from until now) and there was my answer.

No one has ever mentioned her in any of my research. I have Libertarian friends and her name has never surfaced.

How sad!

There were actually 3 women who gave the Libertarian party some street cred: Ayn Rand, Lane, and Isabel Paterson.

I feel finding Lane is the last push I need to wrap up the big project.

I felt I might be insane as I have a ton of binders filled with notes, thoughts, highlights from books, etc. I have notebooks filled with personal essays, and, indeed, blog posts - lots and lots of blog posts. But most of them are scattered (the blog posts) - because I'm easily distractable. Most of us are; we have different people, different hobbies, pulling us in all sorts of direction. It's easy to lose sight of the few things that are truly important.

I was thrilled to learn that Lane had filled over 84 notebooks with her writing at the time of her death (she died in 1968 (the same year I was born) at the age of 81).

Maybe I'm not so crazy after all. Distracted - yes. Quirky - absolutely. Insane? I hope not.