Lucidity. How is it even POSSIBLE to be a world-class genius, a celebrated leader, a religious or scientific scholar—yet remain fundamentally blind to obvious truth?
We often think about lucidity as something you either have or you don’t. You see obvious truths, or you don’t. You’re honest, or you’re a liar with an agenda.
We can grow “from from one degree of glory to another.” This is true in our intellectual lives, our workplace, our families, and our spiritual lives.
Lucidity, our understanding of truth can radically change, if we have humility. We can be stone cold blind, then “see men walking as trees” — only partially able to see some things, and then later see much more clearly.
The blinding effects of cognitive bias, social immersion, and childhood traumas or experiences are very powerful. Dishonesty is not always the largest villain blinding us to what’s right in front of us. But humility and valuing truth above power, pesos, and prestige will determine whether we change.
The men who signed the “Declaration of Independence” were:
• Global Intellectuals: Benjamin Franklin was the most famous scientist alive, a member of the Royal Society who debated with Adam Smith and David Hume.
• Over half held degrees from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the great universities of Europe.
• They walked the halls of Versailles, negotiated with King George III, and corresponded with the leading lights of the Enlightenment like Voltaire and Lafayette.
The Great Paradox
In 1776, these men authored the most famous sentence in the English language: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable Rights…”
Having written these powerful, indelible words about God’s family, 41 of the 56 signers were slaveholders. Only 10–12 signers were genuinely opposed to slavery.
What-what?
Questioning their honesty would be a mistake… But these dudes had a HUGE “lucidity problem.“
Were they liars? The FACTS strongly suggest otherwise. They had a lucidity problem. Like you do. Like I do.
WE can’t see what WE can’t see.
Humility and untethered, unconditional hunger for growth are the antidotes.
1. Brilliance or accomplishments are no shields against blindness. You can be a polymath like Jefferson or a financial wizard like Robert Morris and still possess massive blind spots. (See the comments.)
2. The Founders didn’t lack the intelligence to see the contradiction; they lacked current LUCIDITY.
3. We often assume our current “best practices” are the peak of evolution.
Lucidity is the often painful ability to see the truth even when that truth is inconvenient to your lifestyle, career, or ego.
True growth isn’t just about gaining more knowledge—it’s about the courage to finally see what has been right in front of us the whole time.
SystemOrEcosystem.com is another excellent example of how we have been blinded by habit and social conformity, and lost our way. Temporarily!
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These were among the most educated men in the world:
• ~30 of the 56 had college degrees, extraordinary for the era
• Institutions represented included Harvard, Yale, William & Mary, Princeton (then called College of New Jersey), Columbia (King’s College), and several British and European universities
• Benjamin Franklin had no formal college education yet received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and St. Andrews — arguably the most intellectually accomplished self-taught man of the 18th century
• Thomas Jefferson graduated from William & Mary and read law under George Wythe, one of America’s first great legal scholars
• John Witherspoon (New Jersey) was himself the president of Princeton
• Benjamin Rush (Pennsylvania) studied medicine at Edinburgh, one of the finest medical schools in the world at the time
• Several studied law at the Inns of Court in London, putting them in direct contact with British legal and political elite
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Benjamin Franklin spent roughly 18 years in Europe — first in London (1757–1762, 1764–1775) as a colonial agent, then in Paris (1778–1785) as America’s first de facto ambassador. He was arguably the most famous American — or even the most famous living person — in the world by the 1770s
• John Adams traveled extensively to France, the Netherlands, and Britain as a diplomat, negotiating the Treaty of Paris and serving as the first U.S. Ambassador to Britain
• Thomas Jefferson spent 5 years in France (1784–1789) as American minister, traveling through southern France, northern Italy, and the Rhine Valley. He was deeply shaped by European Enlightenment culture
• Arthur Lee studied at Eton and Edinburgh, practiced medicine, then law, and served as a diplomat in London and Paris
• William Paca, Thomas Lynch Jr., and others studied at the Inns of Court in London, living in England for years
• Several signers had direct military or trade experience in the Caribbean, Canada, and along Atlantic shipping routes
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Benjamin Franklin was personally acquainted with:
• King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of France — he was received at Versailles and was a celebrated figure in French court society
• Voltaire — they met publicly in Paris in 1778 in one of the most celebrated intellectual encounters of the century
• David Hume, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, and Joseph Priestley in Britain
• Immanuel Kant admired Franklin’s scientific work from afar
• Count de Vergennes, French Foreign Minister
Thomas Jefferson knew:
• King Louis XVI (met at Versailles)
• Lafayette — a close personal friend and correspondent for decades
• John Paul Jones, James Madison, and essentially every major Founding figure
• He corresponded with Alexander von Humboldt, the great naturalist-explorer
John Adams personally negotiated with:
• King George III — Adams was the first American ambassador received by the king, a surreal encounter he documented in detail
• Count de Vergennes of France
• Dutch banking and political leaders who provided crucial war loans
John Witherspoon had trained or influenced an astonishing network — his students at Princeton included James Madison, Aaron Burr, a future U.S. Vice President, 10 cabinet officers, 21 senators, and 39 congressmen
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Benjamin Franklin was one of the most celebrated scientists in the world — his electrical experiments, the lightning rod, bifocals (thank you, sir), the Franklin stove, and mapping of the Gulf of America Stream made him a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and a member of learned academies across Europe
• Thomas Jefferson was an architect, naturalist, archaeologist, linguist, inventor, and philosopher — he designed Monticello and the University of Virginia, catalogued American flora and fauna, and wrote Notes on the State of Virginia, a landmark work of Enlightenment natural history
• Benjamin Rush was one of the foremost physicians in the Western world — a pioneer in psychiatry, public health, and medical education
• Robert Morris was arguably the most sophisticated financial mind in the colonies, essentially functioning as a one-man central bank during the Revolution
• Roger Sherman was a self-taught polymath — cobbler, surveyor, lawyer, politician, and theologian — the only Founder to sign all four of the great founding documents
