Independence Day 2024
This week, the United States of America – and we, its people – will celebrate the nation’s 248th birthday in a world at war.
Ukraine, Israel, all the nations joining in on either side, as well as other conflicts. We know so much and at the same time so little about what’s really going on in these conflicts.
But the world was not a peaceful place in 1776, either. England was in conflicts with France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic during the period in which the American Revolution was fought. The Russo-Circassian War, part of the greater Caucasian War (which lasted from 1763 to 1864), was being fought, as were other wars and rebellions.
In fact, the world has never been a peaceful place, as much as we’d all like to think it could be.
As a nation, we look ahead with worry about what the future will bring for our children and for their children. And this year, we look back as well.
America has lost a lot of great legends in 2024. Willie Mays’ passing has left us bereft – the grace and hope of his play seem more gone from the field than before, though he hadn’t played for decades. How old are we, anyway? Bill Walton (whom we wrote about here), Chet Walker, Jerry West have joined the celestial basketball roster.
Writer Alice Munro, comedian Richard Lewis, actors including Tony award-winner Chita Rivera and Oscar-winner Louis Gossett, Jr., are among 2024’s notable casualties. One of Gossett’s early television roles was on The Young Rebels, which treated America’s early revolutionaries.
But while the talented will always leave us (like everyone else), talent doesn’t die – nor does life die with even a hero’s death. And, as Alexander Pope put it,
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest.”
Hope never need die. I’m proud that our country was founded on visionary hope, on truly revolutionary principles of a shared human liberty and equality, even if those principles are, have always been, and always will be a beacon up ahead, a goal to be striven toward, rather than a current state of being.
As Thomas Jefferson wrote:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Let’s celebrate the freedoms we have as Americans – as citizens of a nation which was the first to recognize, at its inception, that human beings have rights not granted by government, but unalienable (or, alternately, inalienable).
Yes, it’s a scary world today – but it always has been. We celebrate in the face of danger. Every time we do celebrate, we know life is all too brief – and that all paths have their perils.
But our Founders were men who stayed the course, who kept their heads in the face of massive opposition, internal to the nation as well as external from it. And it didn’t stop them taking joy in life, any more than it halted their drive to independence for the nation.
So let’s honor them by celebrating what they’ve left us – the knowledge that we have the right to direct our own lives, to climb our own mountains, forge our own destinies.
The right to take joy and pleasure in life where we find it – despite wars and rumors of wars.
We can choose fear, or we can choose joy. Honoring our Founders practically mandates we take the latter path.
And, I promise, we’ll have a lot more fun on that road!
What are your thoughts on our nation’s founding, its legacy? What does being an American mean to you?
Please click here to email me directly – I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
Until next time,
Peace,
Eric
For more thoughts about our nation’s founding, and its Founders, read: