The Fourth of July and the Definition of Freedom
Happy Independence Day! Today, the United States of America celebrates freedom.
This year feels different than previous Fourth of July celebrations. Maybe it’s because there are more speeches, more celebrations, and visually more flags around than before as we reach a special 250-year marker.
I got up a little early this morning to catch the ships coming up the Narrows under the Verrazzano Bridge as they made their way to Manhattan. Ships from everywhere in the world, including Italy, and one in particular, named after the explorer whose name this country bears, Amerigo Vespucci. Legend has it that my uncle, now deceased, who served in the Italian Navy, had spent some time on that ship, probably in a ceremonial way.
People who came to see the ships were patriots. Many were immigrants. There was a couple in front of me, holding hands, who were speaking Russian or Ukrainian; many Asians, a group that comprises the largest demographic in my neighborhood, came to see the ships too.
Fifty years ago, I was in my mother’s womb, a few months from my debut into the world. I am sure I heard the fireworks as I floated in placenta!
I would get to experience in my lifetime a shot at what people call The American Dream as the first of my generation in the United States. And I would say, so far, so good. But not without a sense of something missing.
I have also had a lingering grief throughout my lifetime for my ancestral homeland, one that I only visited once and am so grateful for that opportunity. As an homage to my Italian culture, I speak rather fluently, a rarity among most of my fellow Italian-Americans.
American History was a favorite subject of mine in school, and the first hint of my writing talent was actually connected to my family’s immigrant past: two separate essays at different times in my young life on the value of immigrants in America won contests.
I always felt that my soul’s decision to incarnate on American soul was intentional (actually, I think it’s all pre-determined, but that is another conversation). That, in spite of this lingering hunger to connect to my ancestry, that there is a reason I am here. The block I grew up on had a home on the corner that was called “The White House” because it looked like a smaller version of the real deal. It was perpendicular to another street called Independence Avenue. And one of the first streets my father lived on as a bachelor was called President Street in downtown Brooklyn. Politics also fascinated me as a kid. I would record on audiocassette the State of the Union speeches given by then-president George Bush (they were so boring, but I felt the desire to record them. In retrospect, I think this was practice in spotting liars, who I later felt most politicians to be).
But back to the word freedom. Another curiosity of mine. What is it?
When I would sit in the back seat of my parents’ car during road trips as a kid and look outside the window at rural America, this city kid thought, that must be freedom. You’re left alone, nobody is bothering you. No neighbors blasting their radio on the stoops of urban Brooklyn when you are trying to sleep. No bombs going off like in those countries I learned about in Social Studies. The song of birds, maybe, and barbecues in some distant lawn.
As a grew up, and now approach what Dante would call “the middle of the journey of my life,” I came to realize that freedom is being able to control my mind. To discern what thoughts and behaviors are mine from what I have inherited from school, family, and other things outside of myself. And it’s an ongoing process, being able to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to, in Walt Whitman’s words, “dismiss whatever insults your own soul.”
The Declaration of Independence, which preceded the Constitution by thirteen years, was a first (major) step in our country’s individuation, the process (coined by Carl Jung) of becoming your true self. Interestingly, I had the opportunity to see, in person, both an original copy of the Declaration of Independence and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, as separate and incredible exhibits at the New York Public Library.
The Declaration of Independence at the New York Public Library.
Leaves of Grass at the New York Public Library.
And those opportunities were lamp posts in my own American experience.
Freedom is also many other things. It is the ability to choose what you put and don’t put in your body (learning to read nutrition labels should be required in schools, in my humble opinion) and it is this type of freedom I am most thankful for. As humans, opposed to, say, our furry friends, we have the ability and resources to research and make our own decisions based on that research (which we may reverse later) on what we think is best for us at any given time. This freedom is life-affirming.
Freedom is also the opportunity to be the best version of yourself.
The United States has undoubtedly lifted millions of lives for the better, and so, this experiment of a nation has already achieved its divine purpose. But it is still an imperfect one, with a stained past (and present). Slavery, unnecessary wars, “fake food,” government contamination of nature, and now, AI and technocracy loom.Today, there are divisive arguments between the political “Left” and “Right” (the Founding Fathers must be rolling in their graves) about what we are celebrating.
I think it’s impossible to weigh the good vs. the bad of America. Just a hope that its birthday is another milestone on its evolutionary path towards greater freedom.
And that is enough to celebrate.
