September 11th… 6 years later

 

 

Today I think of how quickly everyone forgets the unity and singularity of purpose once known as the years increase between September 11th 2001 and the present.  My sense is that we could not be more divided than we are right now and our enemies probably enjoy the satisfaction of knowing they have not only hurt us physically, but emotionally and politically as well.  I wonder if they knew how quickly we would all turn on one another; I, for one, am appalled at such a realization.

But life goes on for all of us in all our cocoons.  I am keenly aware that Americans are an impatient sort.  Not entirely our fault, I’ll concede, but not always a beneficial quality to possess.  While our desire to see things accomplished “yesterday” has contributed to our success as a Superpower, individually, we want what we want NOW… or sooner.  And when it comes to war, we Americans have precious little tolerance for the unavoidable accompanying discomfort.  Of course, as Americans, we also want THE best, 100% infallible plan that can be carried out neatly and quickly with little to no casualties. 

Sadly, this is not a reality we can know and we all scurry for someone to blame.  Blame makes us feel a little better and gives us a focus so moving forward is bearable.  But what we all really want is for none of this dreaded ugliness to ever have touched our lives in the first place, for our fragile version of innocence to have been left in tact, for those terrorists to have been stopped before they boarded the planes on that fateful day six years ago.  We want what we can’t have, and, heck, we’re Americans… we usually figure out a way to get it!  So instead of acknowledging a pain that cannot be quelled, we collectively grumble, complain, name-call, and viscously blame easy targets.

And today I think: How many years before we figure out that our country’s dissension feeds our enemy while starving our ability to heal and triumph?