All's Well: Where Thou Art Earth and Why

Book Synopsis: A rollicking treatise on human achievement and potential that offers the keys to perfecting our purpose: establishing Freedom for All. In All’s Well. Where Thou Art Earth and Why, John Lefebvre blends philosophy, metaphysics and ethics into an original, lyrical meditation on our place in the Universe, both the distance we have come and the much longer way before us. Lefebvre suggests that—at our core—we are the Universe’s vessels of consciousness. That means that we are also its vessels of astonishment and of love. With this up-sizing of the human condition, he argues that the United States’ founding principles, as compared to its achievements to date, form the clear basis for establishment of Universal Rights and Responsibilities. These include the Rights to:

• Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
• Access to food, clothing and shelter
• Access to the tools of self-improvement, to health care, to basic capital, and to justice, and
• The Right to a Healthy Environment

Our lack of achievement, to date, is that these rights are not, nor have they ever been, universally accorded. These rights, that so many of us take for granted, come with huge responsibility. The Responsibility that comes with Freedom, Lefebvre contends, is to assure all others have every right that we take for granted, as completely. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed with certain unalienable Rights ("..quaintly referring to our species as 'men,' suggests Lefebvre). Though they may not have fully comprehended the breadth and extent of their words, by some genius America’s founders stumbled upon eternal truth. Lefebvre admits this genius is currently overshadowed in America by a different sentiment. "Those who accept what freedom has fallen in their lap, but who ignore what others less fortunate must suffer, have not earned their Freedom but have, merely, taken liberties. Even these liberties come with dire responsibilities: to protect all humans from deprivation, and protect all our natural bounty, Earth, from degradation. To accept as the fair price of Freedom, that these responsibilities have no borders, and to act accordingly, has never been more pressing."

Interweaving small, autobiographical glimpses of Lefebvre’s remarkable life and career, All’s Well is nevertheless a story of us all, providing a rare and lyrical perspective on humankind—and what both parts of that word truly mean.