9/11/01

If you were alive 11 years ago today, you remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard, read, or saw the news on TV or the Internet about the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC. Since the attacks, countless words have been written about the attacks-- what they mean to the United States, to the world, to the individuals directly affected and to those indirectly affected. Beyond words, the images-- the flaming towers, dismal, broken architecture, and missing person fliers littering lower Manhattan -- have been repeated endlessly. The reproduction of these words and images distances us from the event itself, in a way comforting us, letting us know it's in the past, safely memorialized and remembered, not experienced.

Instead of cluttering the Internet with more words and pictures about 9/11/01, let's simply take a moment to do nothing, to be still, to be silent for a few minutes today at some point and experience the life that we have now and be grateful. Not to comfort us or discomfort us, but to remind us that in the same way terrible events can bring us together as Americans and as humans, positive events can do the same, and despite all our individual differences and disagreements, we really are more similar to each other than different.