Dear Universe: (ahem!)
Happy Birthday to U, Happy Birthday to U, Happy Birthday Dear Universe, Happy Birthday to U!
What a coincidence!
Today is also George Washington’s birthday! Hooray!
George Washington was born in America. So was I. Maybe you weren't. But we were both born in the universe, so trust me, this concerns you too.
Now I am in Japan. On the surface it is the same as America.
If you dig a little deeper to the core though, you'll realize that its values and beliefs about how human BEings can/should live lives to the highest quality are the exact opposite of those at the core of the United States.
We have two opposites holding reality together.
But if you dig even deeper, to the center of the core, you can't even find the difference between the two...
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I'm about to wax poetic about patriotism for the first time in years. Living in a foreign country for almost a year can do that to you. But I'll offset that by admitting that neither George Washington nor the United States of America invented love, or freedom, or the love of freedom. But they were both integral to that mysterious pattern that plays itself out through our lives, and if you like thinking about things every once in a while, then pondering the poetry permeating the purpose of the person who was the premier president might make you smile a little more persistently.
I do everything I do in the hope that I will smile more. That sounds selfish and is in a way, but usually when I'm smiling at least one other person starts smiling, so it's no longer selfish.
I’m beginning to realize that a huge part of my experience in Japan has not only been about learning about the other half of what it means to be a human, but learning about what it means to be an American. Or more importantly, to BE in a world highly influenced by American ideas and values. Or ideas and values that expressed themselves initially through the founding and perpetuation of the United States of America.
I began reading the universe's story about George Washington a few months ago. I began it in Japan, continued reading it during a holiday return to America, and finished it literally seconds before touching down at Narita Airport for Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 2. This is what I learned:
A long time ago in a universe all around you and inside of you, there was a planet called Earth. On this spinning ball was a piece of land eventually named America, after the first guy with light colored skin to find it. Then an island called England took a bunch of it from other people before other people could. After a few hundred years the people who actually lived there hated being controlled by the people on that tiny island, and one of them was named George Washington, a guy who had spent his life kicking other people's asses in the name of duty and worrying about fashion and farming. He kept one of the most pathetic armies on earth alive through horrible winters against superior forces (an empire that ran more of the world than any other), and made tactical mistake after tactical mistake due to inexperience. Eventually a charming writer/inventor/scientist/patriot named Benjamin Franklin convinced the French to help them out, and France helped them out because they hated England (the enemy of my enemy is my friend...for now). The combined forces took advantage of a foolish British mistake and captured them, winning independence for the nation called the United States of America.
The United States has since replaced its asexual parent, England, as the most globally active "bordered" union of human beings on the Earth spinning in space. By what it is being spun has yet to be determined. Some people use the word God to end the discussion, and some people use other words or don't think about it. The United States became one of the first places where that didn't matter, or at least legally didn't matter. For about a decade it tried to get along as a loose confederation of independent states that really just wanted to be selfish and screw each other over. For fears that it would again be invaded by people who didn’t live there, the smartest, most powerful, outspoken and/or loudest citizens of this completely new and insecure country got together to make some new rules to guide it into the future. They also realized that they would get along just about as well as the squabbling states had been doing unless they picked ONE human to preside over them all. Not to rule them, but to preside over them. There is a huge difference. Everyone trusted George for his display of honesty, strength, bravery and aversion to celebrity and power. This was mostly accurate. Although George was the country’s first true hero, he was also the country’s first true middle-of-the-road, let’s-consider-every-option-of-how-this-could-make-me-look-in-the-polls-and-in-posterity politician. Then again, who wouldn’t do so themselves with so much attention on them all of the time?
George presided over the proceedings, playing the role of the stern father. Combined with a masterful performance by Benjamin Franklin as sagely grandfather, the assembled men formed the rules for the United States of America, which would eventually guarantee so many freedoms and rights that never existed before for common human beings without tons of money or power. They weren’t perfect, and they left out lots of deserving human beings, and it failed to truly live up to its creed as believing that all men were created equal with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and it still has...
...but they also knew that reality is always a challenge where the best you can hope for is a step in the right direction. If you think it’s hard for a bunch of states to get together and work out nicely and happily for everyone, imagine everything in the universe agreeing perfectly. In short, it was a miracle step in the evolution of experiencing the potential quality of the universe. This happens all the time, but I can't think of anything else poetically pertinent to today's date, so I'm trumping it up a little.
After all of the rules were in place, calling for a president, they naturally picked George Washington to preside over the country for the first eight years, since he’d done such a good job of looking presidential and glaring at people who dared to fraternally slap him on the back. However many times its name changed during the course of his life, he served his homeland for decades.
By the end of it he had been disillusioned and downright worn out by political infighting led by Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, which had set the sorry stage for competitive governing styles that we still see played out over the airwaves to this day, even though the names and issues have changed. So George got sick of it and retired. He really hated it when people criticized him or questioned his honesty. About a year later he worked outside in the snow for too long without a hat, and he died in his early 60’s, the father of The United States of America.
Now the people of America like him so much that they’ve put his picture on the most circulated piece of paper in the world, the United States ONE DOLLAR bill. Trust me, if you travel around the world, people want dollars (except maybe Japan). Even Chinese people were bugging me to trade. It may not be great value right now (however those quacks determine that nonsense), but people know it’s a good bet for the long run in the universal value. Any country that takes a step in the direction of giving more people more freedom to be happy is a country I want influencing the world. George Washington didn’t create the idea of freedom or perfect it, and neither did the United States. They didn't even create the idea of unity. But they helped manifest it.
The other side of that piece of paper with his face on it uses that “God” word again, and says “In God We Trust”, which, more simply, is saying, “We Trust”. ONE. There’s one thing we are experiencing now, and it’s everything. We trust it. We trust the universe. We trust whatever is happening right now. We don't always want to agree with it or like it or enjoy it, but it's all we've got. One verse.
George was along for the ride just as much as anyone else. But unlike most people, it’s his birthday today, and sometimes it’s nice to take notice of these poetic symbols hand-delivered to us by reality. They're part of a constant flow of clues, and if we so choose to notice them, they can help us reflect on the lives we’re living, the freedoms we have, and the part that every other human being outside our mind has played in the universe’s supreme sacrifice for our freedom to pursue and experience the bliss of being.
In his day, George Washington was THE MAN. However, his picture isn't on the side of ONE, which is reserved for this God being everyone's been talking about forever. THE MAN is on the flip-side of one, so it’s no mistake that his birthday is 2 22. It’s not just me and it’s not just you. To create and keep his family together in harmony, George had Martha. To create and keep his country together in harmony, George had Benjamin Franklin. If George Washington were to be set face to face with any other human being in existence, he would have to admit that he couldn’t have done it without them, just as Americans have to admit that we couldn’t be here without him... or England... or Egypt, or Iraq, or China, or Japan, or India, or Israel, or Mexico, or Antarctica, or Mars, or some supernova you've never even heard of, or the first protist, or superstring, or electron, or the duck-billed platypus.
If you ever get lonely, just look at that picture of George and remember that nobody does it alone, and you're more connected to the rest of the universe than you could possibly imagine.
When I see George Washington’s picture on the one dollar bill, I am reminded that although we are one, we are also two, which might not make perfect sense to me, and probably won’t to you, but the universe can agree that both of itself is true.
Happy Birthday to YOU!
