Being Jeffersonian

I WASTED TIME and energy walking across my front lawn to my mailbox, for it was empty, and since the mail has been mostly good news lately, I was mildly disappointed. I got over it, and soon realized my disappointed was inevitable, and my walk unnecessary, because it is Independence Day, a day when one can wait an eternity for mail which never arrives.This year's attenuated, virus plagued Independence day seemed less special than any other in my sixty five years. Every July fourth I read aloud, in a stentorian, sonorous voice, the Declaration of Independence, to an audience of one. I began the tradition in college. by now, I know the seminal document quite well. I remind myself of its author, Thomas Jefferson, in tw o or three ways WE both liked to read, and were both knowledgeable in many areas, although Jefferson was expert in many, and I, poor I, in none.Jefferson in his lifetime, and I in mine were both disappointed in the lack of the social and scientific progress we had both anticipated in your youths. Jefferson kept waiting for the United States of america to free his slaves, for the society in which he lived to make it possible for him to free his slaves without suffering tremendous hardships in so doing, both to himself and to the former slaves. It never happened. As  child, i expected that I would live to see colonies on the moon and Mars, and the elimination of disease, poverty, and war. In terms of idealism, i was every bit Jefferson's match. Last but not least, Jefferson and I were both hypocrites, making us both members of a very large club, perhaps including all humanity. Jefferson's hypocrisies are well documented and known; his slave ownership and opposition to slave, among numerous other examples. Mine might be too numerous to mention, but one in particular comes to mind. As i age, I find that not only do I deplore the human trait of anger, but I find that i see it everywhere around me, often directed at me. So great is my disgust at teh anger i see as being rampant in our current culture that I have resolved that anyone who becomes angry at me i will henceforth exclude from my life. the list of exiles is long, and becoming longer. In all cases, i see the anger of others towards me as being unjustified, overreactions, needless exercises in venting and manifestations of their self loathing. And I'm sure there's some truth in that. But what I must accept, or at least acknowledge, is my own anger. My anger is directed against, for the most part, Donald Trump, all his many supporters, and people who reject science, especially evolution and climate change. Whether these folks are legitimate objects of my anger is another matter; the fact is, that is a considerable body of anger for one person to bear. But, as we say, its a tough job, and somebody has to do it.