{"id":2576,"date":"1992-07-10T21:27:11","date_gmt":"1992-07-10T21:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/?page_id=2576"},"modified":"2016-06-25T22:25:39","modified_gmt":"2016-06-25T22:25:39","slug":"blues-aint-nothing-but-a-good-soul-feeling-bad-0710","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/?page_id=2576","title":{"rendered":"07\/10"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BluesAintNothingBookCover\"<\/a>WHAT ARE we to do when we must decide between the loneliness of independence and the self-sacrifice of conformity? There are times when the only options that seem available to us are either to suffer the seemingly unbearable isolation of standing alone, or to savor the sweet comfort of certainty by surrendering and becoming a part of the herd.<\/p>\n

No one is beyond such temptations. Even Solzhenitsyn, the expatriate Soviet writer whose life has become a symbol of an individualistic spirit, admits having seen the options and been tempted. \u201cI remember very well . . .\u201d he wrote in The Gulag Archipelago, \u201cthat I experienced the happiness of simplification . . . not having to think things through; the happiness of being immersed in the life everyone else lived.\u201d<\/p>\n

We remain both graced and burdened when we continue to recognize that people choose different courses of action not because they are better or worse than we are but because they understand the options differently than we do.<\/p>\n

To be creative we must follow a path of our own. When we are lost,
\nwe must find our own way home.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WHAT ARE we to do when we must decide between the loneliness of independence and the self-sacrifice of conformity? There […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2576","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P2R4NI-Fy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2576"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2664,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2576\/revisions\/2664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}