Dear Friend,
I have much to convey to you since we last connected on your planet Neead.  Do to my speedy trial and swift execution I was unable to plan where my soulful being would be sent.  So here on a planet called Earth, I drift uninhibited, free from the bondage of my previous physical being.  Here on Earth I have chose to learn anew and increase my knowledge of the many different walks in the universe.  Earth is a queer place, though it is filled with much unrest like our poor planet, many nations here have striven to better their society.  I have been incredibly lucky to chance upon a group of Earthling students participating in an online literature course.  Their readings primarily cover the history of one nation, America and the United States, and its founding qualities.  I have decided to tag along on this literary journey and have discovered many interesting things that would better our wild home planet of Neead.  The readings discuss the central idea of change; change in religion, in society, in politics, education, and many others.  I feel, dear Friend, that change is what this nation, The States of a United America, is built on. I believe, with every non-physical ounce of my self-being, that our planet Neead needs this same lesson of change.
    The first settlers to come to the land of America were religious reformists, men and women who felt their current form of religion was corrupt and mislead them. So naturally, they crammed themselves onto wooden floaty contraptions and floundered across the vast waters of the International Atlantic to a new land(America of the United States).  I think they called themselves pure’itans, probably because they felt they were becoming “pure” from their self-cleansing religious move to the Americas.  One specific man from these pure’itan persons was Roger Williams.  In his writing, The Bloody Tenant of Persecution, John used an analogy of following false churches and religions to a wife who had been adulterous to her husband by sleeping in other beds(Williams).  He was saying essentially that following false religion was like cheating on your spouse because you were “sleeping" with other churches.  Williams painted the vivid picture of how pure’itans “believed that the Church of England was corrupt and that true Christians must separate themselves from it”(Campbell) or, the belief of starting fresh in a new land by breaking away from the false doctrine in the old land.  “Breaking away and starting new”, kind of like myself on Earth(except my “breaking away” was through my death. Haha...).  Anyhow, I have found this a very important idea which led to the creation of the States United in America.  If these religious people would not have felt change was necessary they never would have trekked across the waters to start a fresh life.
    Another religious change in the new America land was the idea of separating church from state.  Many people wished to limit the power that religion had in previous politics and government.  Limiting religion and preserving a separation from government was a key point by Enlightenment writer Thomas Paine, who wrote that it was necessary for “revolution in the form of religion” from “the adulterous connection of church and state”(Paine).  Progressive thinking like this was called the Enlightenment!  What a fantastic word, is it not, Dear Friend?  Enlightenment, even the simple connotation of it directs my thoughts to illumination, or a vibrant light that fills every corner, leaving no shadows.  I think, Dear Friend, that Enlightenment is exactly that; a sense of filling every corner of ones being with knowledge, or trying to open ones self to as many different ideas as possible, without leaving any shadow any space void of thought.  I would contest that even in the contemporary United American States that Enlightenment thinking is still very prevalent and it probably will stay that way for a while.  Even in my short experience at this academy of knowledge they call MCTC, I have chanced upon many a fair persons, well into the later years of human life, who are furthering their education.  It seems strange to see aged persons wasting the last few years of their short life in such a dull setting but as I have been corrected, it is not a waste to have knowledge.
    The thinking prior to the settlement of the new land in America was very simple it seems.  Most colonial thought was focused on religion and how it led every being through life and how every thought or action was a reflection of God or Gods will.  One writing that was discussed was the captivity narrative of Mary Rowlandson; she believed that every good deed or act of kindness, the foreign customs of her captors, or even her own actions and her thoughts were acts of her God.  Whatever took place in Rowlandson’s life and writing was by the will and good grace of her God.  It is intriguing to see how, in such a short time period, the progression of  thought in the new America and the States United changed.  
    I wish, Dear Friend, that you and I could have spent less time in that dreadful monotony of Neead and projected ourselves into the society of new America.  I have very much enjoyed my time here on Earth amongst these encouraging intellectuals of MCTC, many of them have provided examples of how our readings connected the United American States to being the country of change.  Such as Miss Chelsea Suiter, in one open discussion of Thomas Paine stated, we must "give [Paine] credit for thinking differently, and trying to help himself, and others, by looking at the world around them from a different point of view”(Suiter).  Another Student, Kwenen Nelson, shared another interesting thought in the same discussion of Paine and the importance of self thought.  Kwenen said, “Too often I have witnessed people [who] believe in something simply because they are told to or because it is part of their religion”(Nelson).  Both peers stressed the importance of new and different thinking and that only if one enters self discovery will they find self worth; do not get caught in the same old thinking and teaching as everybody else, but challenge and push for new boundaries.
    Vast amounts of writings and authors are still unknown to me, but I hope to continue my education of this interesting country of the United States of America and I do hope that it will continue to captivate me with such profound and progressive thinking.  My Dear Friend, I beg you, please consider visiting this contagious idea of Enlightenment; for the betterment of Neead, I beg you! Earth has inspired me.

Your humble comrade,
The Learn’d One