We Have Lost so Much

I see flashes and hear sounds of that country I was from, the United States.

I didn’t expect to feel anything today.

There is so little authenticity now, everything is for show. It seems there are no emotions left, except those ones somehow accepted by this new world: anger, hatred, triumph, vengeance, pride, outrage, glee. Nothing deeper.

I guess plenty of us do remember the world of only a decade ago. You could see people crying and quietly resting while Paul Simon sang and while the names are read.

It’s hard to describe.

Whatever happened, all you intellectuals can debate it.

But those planes—such a load of hate, such a violent explosion of hate.

And, stupidly, hastily and predictably, we answered in kind. In so doing, we lost ourselves.

Much of the memorial today is beautiful. Singing. Water.

But there is still plenty of the same old moronic war and vengence talk.

Did “the terrorists” win? You bet they did.

But perhaps “terrorists” needs to be better understood. Who are they, really?

Our way of life? Gone.

Our country? Done.

I mean this in the way that I think matters, and it’s hard to explain if you are not American, or if you are very young. The parts of America that appear to matter to the ones in charge are not the parts I would have thought.

Locked in perpetual war, in economic free fall, civil rights lost, every personal moment caught on TV, private lives trotted out on the internet, spy cameras everywhere, our moral standing in ruins, a small group of wastafarians and corporations running everything, concentration and conversation disappearing in favor of twitter updates and sound bites……the effort to live like a real human being becomes harder and more frustrating.

What did we gain from the attacks on September 11? We accessed some dark part of ourselves and it got out, and took over. We did the same thing as was done to us, even though we hurt enough to turn that hurt into something else. We didn’t take that road though. We took the easier one, the war one, the one that humans usually take. And so here we are, once again in the circle of history.

We humans are truly morons. We never learn.

I am so glad I was here on September 11. I will always remember it, the terror, the heartbreak, the horror. The smell. The other hurt people, and the possibility that together, something good would come out of it.

Now, 10 years later, it’s like waking up in a strange land.

I don't know who to credit this picture with. I'm sorry.