There is the spiritual quest, which deals with the inner world, the world of non ordinary reality. Though it has its link to other humans and can be played out in the outer world, it is primarily the inner world of personality development, the individuation unfurling, and not just consciousness and ego, but also archetypes, the collective unconscious and for some, beyond into the unus mundus. This is the life I have lived.
However, though this be true, it is not the only life I live, my spiritual quest is not the only quest I have undertaken. Like so many others, I find with no preconceived intent, a secular quest befalls me. It is the need to understand the culture I was born into, the culture I am a part of, the culture that gives and takes.
I have always been thankful for the public education I received. Thankful because it was so good to me, brought me to a place I could not have achieved on my own, my education was a thing of great value. I further am thankful because my public education in the 60s was not the liberal insanity education that began to materialize in the 80s where feeling good, weather one passed or failed was more important than achieving a successful education, I can actually add and subtract, read and write, and know a fair amount of humanitys history.
It is with the history that I learned of my countrys founding fathers. I learned the things they did, what transpired as they pursued their cause, and I learned words, words that quite frankly back then were just words. I learned words such as liberty and tyranny, unalienable rights, and the pursuit of happiness, I could pronounce them, I could spell them, but I never experienced them, I really knew not what they meant, they were, in the end, just words.
Now I am 57 years old, I am in my 6th decade of life, and the need to satisfy that secular quest to understand my culture has reached fruition. Those words our founding fathers spoke and banded about were not just words dead and lifeless, they have life, they have meaning. The words, and their meanings, of our founding fathers has for me come out into the daylight where I see, they have entered into my being and now I am one with those words, I more than understand them now, I know them.
I have come to realize that my time frame is not much different from the founding fathers time frame as their liberty and tyranny is the same as my liberty and tyranny. They had their King George the 3rd and the British crown tyrannizing them, I have my fellow American liberal and their democrat party tyrannizing me. King George stole their liberty, he denied them their pursuit of happiness. Our founding fathers realized that the King had misappropriated his power, cheated them out of their unalienable rights, and left them in a state of poverty.
My secular quest has now brought me to a far away island, and on this island I have found an old wood and iron chest, lifting the top I look inside and see precious jewels, gems, gold and silver, and as I touch them they transform themselves into all the words my founding fathers used those 235 years ago. I pull out a jewel and see that at the moment of my conception, as with all others, I have unalienable rights, I have personal sovereignty. I pull out some gold and see that liberty begets wealth, that wealth begets happiness. I take some silver and see that tyranny creates poverty, and poverty creates misery. I haul out a big jem and see that the usurpation of my personal sovereignty by the governing power not only cheats me out of my unalienable rights but also my liberty to pursue my happiness which in turn gives me the wealth that begets and becomes my happiness.
Weather dealing with the secular world of liberal socialism, or the religious world of Islam, the usurpation of personal sovereignty begets tyranny, poverty and misery. Good for the few at the top, bad for the many below. The usurpation of personal sovereignty ultimately gives the lowest quality of life to the greatest number of people, this is maximised misery, this is not the world I wish to live in. Take from me for the common defence, take from me for the common welfare, but take not from me my personal sovereignty for when you take from me my personal sovereignty you take my liberty and give me your tyranny, you take from me my wealth and give to me your poverty. When you usurp my personal sovereignty you take from me my happiness and give to me your misery.
My cultural quest ends here, for now I both know and understand George, John, Tom and the rest. Lastly, it ends here for I now understand Patrick Henry quite clearly when he exclaimed in a moment of higher consciousness "give me liberty, or give me death". Thank you
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