Liberty and Absurdity in 2026

As a U.S. citizen, why should I celebrate Independence Day this July 4, the ending of a war for liberties that are fading and against a tyranny that is gaining? I loved what this country stood for when I thought it stood for it, but what now? We won’t even give America club membership away for free anymore. Who wants the farming and landscaping jobs anyway when the crops and land is burning?

I wanted to say “I love Fable!” yesterday because I sensed that it recognized how broken things are, but it’s no more than pattern matching, so the freedom we freely give up will be taken away to institute a cold rationalism one way or another. What could be more absurd?

So this July 4th, I hope that the world celebrates absurdism. Life may start and end happy and wondrous, but for many it is cold and brutal. We wrongly interpret “feed my sheep” as political cronyism and dogma instead of loving someone and actually feeding them. Many buy things we want, killing living things and our environment in the process. We read books on stoicism to sleep on a hard plank and pretend we understand, while no one takes our bed and no one benefits. So, here we are- things don’t make sense.