TL:DR Barry Bradley, a former marine and the early morning big band broadcaster on WOBO-FM, stressed the importance of referring to this day as "Independence Day" rather than "July the Fourth" - I was too busy with work at the time to hear his rationale, but the notion stuck with me. Every month has a fourth day, in terms of numerical importance I think February 29th is more noteworthy...the notion of independence however is a different beast entirely. Philosophically, politically, financially, pathologically, and so on - these points of "independence" are not so easily identifiable and yet they are all connected to our pastoral idea of "freedom". Individual freedom is not independent - my background in science is limited but I can state with confidence than no piece of matter remains unchanged forever, and change cannot occur without assistance from a foreign entity. Perhaps there is some god being beyond human understanding that is eternally uniform, but even if "there is nothing new under the sun" "the times are still a-changing" all the while, you are subject, object and catalyst no matter where or what you come from - you are both the creator and victim, of circumstance and action. Independence Day started as a celebration of the "birthday" of the U.S.A. but I think it needs greater meaning in our current society. Colonies declaring independence from their founding country is hardly a new concept - remember Rome? It started as a Greek colony. Africa, South America and parts of Asia are still recovering from the aftershocks of European colonization. And I would hope that as we begin to communicate and integrate on a global scale the idea of nationalistic identity would give way to humanistic identity - the idea of individuality, that we are all unique little snowflakes even if we are all still essentially snow, remains; I am not the only Britton in the world, one of my professors in college had the same first name, but I am my own man. My influences are manifold but my thoughts, opinions, my feeling - these are independent, they are mine and that alone - you may feel similar but you do not think exactly the same. You are independent in your thoughts, your feelings; you are your own person and that is worth celebrating no matter where you live.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 03:56:59 +0000
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