See you in September

It's such a hubbub, it seems necessary to say something about it. Or, what is it about a decade?

It's been ten years since the World Trade Center towers disappeared in a cloud of smoke and dust, settling over new york and the rest of the country like the pollen in a field of poppies...is this when we lost our way?

I lost my innocence, in a way, that day. But only because I believed in things then that don't seem to matter now; twenty-three has it's own idealism.

Here's what's significant to me, ten years on:

We still don't have a tower there.

We're at war - the war that started moments after - and we're not winning. We may not even be fighting the right battles.

We've become a country divided by political polemics that set past (or maybe, it's today) against future, tradition against progress, emotion against intellect, symbols against symbols.

We still think it's our job to run the world, alone, even though no other country seems to see us that way (anymore). And really, why would we want to?

We still don't know what that act of terrorism meant. Sure, we have our own interpretations, but we have only been able to cast the opposing side as devils, which makes it hard to see it their way...and that makes it impossible to see ourselves from their viewpoint. A most informative perspective, lost.
And this is not to say we should have embraced the terrorists and done what we could to appease them. Absolutely not. Simply that there was careful thought, purpose, and meaning in what they did, and we've given little consideration to what that was.
Who are we in the world that so much time and so many resources went into the planning and execution of such an act against us? I have my own answer.

There has been so little healing accomplished. I lost something intangible, but I was lucky. I know so many who lost so much more, everything, life, and they are haunted. They may be forever, but the contextualizing of this 21st century myth leaves little incentive for those that survived to open their hearts again, in spite of the pain. "Heroism" seems a thin comfort.

Now we are a country of victims - it pervades everything we think and do.

To those born in the 21st century, this event is nothing but the myth it's become.

Someone's tenth birthday is today, and that life matters more than any that were lost. It is a harsh thing to say, but it is true. That living, breathing glance into the future is more important than all of those that were lost, and we are doing little to serve her, to honor her, to smooth her way into the world she will someday rule. We argue over borders, and budgets, and individual rights that were passe in the time of Democritus, while this ten year old learns fear, and hubris, and a deep undercurrent of uncertainty.
Fortunately, she is human, and she may find a new way forward.