of silence to remember the victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks,
and the soldiers now fighting overseas. Ours was at 8:46 AM, the time the
first plane struck. It's hard to believe it's been six years. Honestly, it
feels like it's been longer...much longer. It seems like history -
something you learn about in class that happened long ago to other people.
Sometimes, I equate it to learning about the attack on Pearl Harbor. I know
better, but I can't shake the feeling of remoteness. Ironically, just
like six years ago, I was sitting in a training class at 8:46 AM. You'd
think the added sense of deja-vu would have made me feel more connected to
the day, but it didn't. After some serious thought I realized why I feel so
far removed from that day...one word...complacency.
I suppose it's natural to feel somewhat complacent about something that
happened six years ago. I mean, it wasn't yesterday. But to feel so
completely distant from it, like I remember hearing about it rather than
remembering it, makes it very surreal. It wasn't surreal for my friend who
got off his morning train at the WTC station at 8:46 AM to confusion and
fear, only to emerge on the street into a war zone. Or for my other friend
who, while coincidentally looking out of his office window at 7 Liberty
Plaza at 8:46 AM actually watched the first plane hit. It was very real for
my cousins, also, both NYC firefighters who showed up later that afternoon
for their regular shifts to continue fighting the blaze and, for weeks
afterward, assist in the rescue and recovery efforts. All four of them,
gratefully, for me and more importantly, their families, survived.
All the while, here I was, safely tucked in Connecticut, a long distance
spectator. Now, six years later, that distance seems so much greater.
The signs of that day are all around us. From security lines at the airport
to terror alerts to metal detectors to Al Qaeda videos to the war itself.
No where was it more obvious than in Washington, D.C. This spring, my
family took a vacation there. It was very sad to see a city specifically
designed for openness and accessibility hiding within itself behind jersey
barriers. Gone are the days when you could just walk into the Capitol or
the National Archives, or wait in line for a same day tour of the White
House. I don't know if we'll ever get that innocence back again.
Maybe that's really what I'm feeling - a loss of innocence - and with it
went all the expectations of safety and security I grew up feeling were mine
just because I was an American. That could be why I feel so detached from
the events of September 11...it's complacency born of a forced realization
that we are targets. Maybe I feel this way because I've so convinced myself
that we can never and have never truly been safe that I think what happened
was just natural or inevitable. Hey, it's going to rain again some day, why
get all excited when it happens and melancholy looking back? It's part of
life. But things like 9-11 aren't, or at least shouldn't be. Not for us, or
anyone.
People say we have lost our liberties over the past six years, but I think
what we've really lost is our sense of freedom. We're scared, so we hide
and stop doing things the way we used to. We guard ourselves more, close
ourselves off more. We mistrust and grumble. We immerse ourselves in
pop-culture because the reality of the world is too scary, and we think that
maybe, just maybe, if we hide from it and divert our attention, it won't
catch up with us. Imagine that...a nation of 300 million suspicious,
possibly paranoid, reality-TV watching shut-ins. No wonder we're at each
other's throats...we have cabin fever. We keep fighting and looking for
someone or something to blame for how we feel, but we're aiming at the wrong
targets.
The President isn't our enemy, neither is Congress, nor the Supreme Court,
nor the Patriot Act, nor the soldiers, nor Republicans nor Democrats nor
minorities nor whatever. Complacency...that's the enemy. These other
things are parts of our culture, something too many of us have been
avoiding for too long. Oh, we talk, or rather, argue politics, for example,
but are we really involved in it? Do we really understand it? How long has
it been? Twenty years? Thirty? One hundred? We talk about fighting the
war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but what about the war here. The war for our
freedom starts here.
We need to start fighting ourselves - not each other like we have been - but
our individual selves. It's time we fought the complacency within each of
us that keeps us shut off and became involved again in our lives and our
country. Instead of watching our neighbors, how about watching out for
them? Rather than protesting something going wrong, how about celebrating
or working to further something that is going right? Why spend money on the
latest fad: save it or invest it or donate some to charity. Become involved
in your community and/or church. Don't snipe at the political opposition,
engage them in a thoughtful debate, taking the time to listen and consider
their point of view.
In the end, we'll probably find more freedom and security by doing these
things than we have known for a while. And maybe we'll put an end to that
awful complacency that tells us that what happened six years ago in New
York, Washington and Pennsylvania was just inevitable and that we had it
coming. If we gain anything from 9-11, it should be to always remember that
such things were, and forever ought to be, the exceptions, not the norm.
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