4th of July.

There’s a lot of angry, fed up people in this world. Here at home and across global ponds, everyone wants change; half one way, half the other, half for economic reasons, half for moral reasons, half for certain rights, half to convict wrongdoings. Remarkably all profess a desire for unity, but only when that unification embraces their own cause at the expense of another’s.
In this early morning calm, I consider the world landscape and how this ideal of “unity in diversity” unravels a little more each day and it’s more than just a little eerie.
The ways of today’s world are far too complex for single issues which arguably do more to divide than unite. No one faction alone can achieve the one ideal all profess as their goal.
Our frustrated responses have become searches for simplicities where available, comforts where reliable and escapes where attainable, all within ever tighter communities which increasingly exclude views of others across their fences. Our solutions have become our problems, our chasms widen and our potential for true unity narrows as we dodge the bloody traps laid by the media and the powerful.
It’s now simpler to stage and post half-truth memes which underpin the basics of our convictions than to attempt to enfold some of the complex truths of others. “Tell me how to think” has taken a front seat to thinking itself because too much pride is at risk for being wrong on some valid points made by the other side.
So we remain angry and fed up for all the wrong reasons and nothing changes, because nothing within any of us changes. Yet without us, nothing will ever change.

I for one don’t have the answer, the we–the one for all–still does if we want it bad enough and we remember that in America—at least on paper—“We, the people” are the leaders still equipped to defeat the divisive anger which polarizes rather than unifies this nation.

So Happy Birthday America. May our many different candles burn bright with passion but not set fire to the entire cake.