Changes

Over the years, I have taken some deep satisfaction that the phrase “life,  

Over the years, I have taken some deep satisfaction that the phrase “life,  

liberty and the pursuit of happiness” has been understood worldwide as a definition of the great American experiment in self-government and as a call to the people of the world to free themselves wherever they are as a first step toward their own [[person]]al fulfillment.   

liberty and the pursuit of happiness” has been understood worldwide as a definition of the great American experiment in self-government and as a call to the people of the world to free themselves wherever they are as a first step toward their own [[personal]] fulfillment.   

So it is disappointing to me, nay, horrifying, that Americans today are more embroiled in the purveying of death than the glorification of life; more enslaved to war and oil and money than liberating themselves and the world’s people to seek out their own soul’s potential; more ensnared in fear of terrorism and fear of their own American government’s enactment of torture and secret imprisonment; more worried about the potential outcome for their own citizens’ brave and outspoken leadership than inspired and engaged in the pursuit of happiness.  

So it is disappointing to me, nay, horrifying, that Americans today are more embroiled in the purveying of death than the glorification of life; more enslaved to war and oil and money than liberating themselves and the world’s people to seek out their own soul’s potential; more ensnared in fear of terrorism and fear of their own American government’s enactment of torture and secret imprisonment; more worried about the potential outcome for their own citizens’ brave and outspoken leadership than inspired and engaged in the pursuit of happiness.  

That apparent regression and destruction signals a mortal wounding of the American soul.  I write to the world’s people by writing to you Americans to remind you all that human well-being out into the distant future is now dependent on your mutual and all-encompassing embrace of all life on earth, all liberty on earth and all happiness on earth.  

That apparent regression and destruction signals a mortal wounding of the American soul.  I write to the world’s people by writing to you Americans to remind you all that human well-being out into the distant future is now dependent on your mutual and all-encompassing embrace of all life on earth, all liberty on earth and all happiness on earth.  

That I suffered mightily through merciless editing of my original draft of the [[Declaration of Independence]] was no pain at all compared to my present pain at the prospect of losing our noble experiment in self-governance and the liberty of [[human]] fulfillment to the forces of self-serving, material acquisition and self- denigrating timidity of spirit running rampant today.  

That I suffered mightily through merciless editing of my original draft of the [[Declaration of Independence]] was no pain at all compared to my present pain at the prospect of losing our noble experiment in self-governance and the liberty of [[human]] fulfillment to the forces of self-serving, material acquisition and self- denigrating timidity of spirit running rampant today.

==Letter V==

==Letter V==