It's become almost a cliche' to talk about what happened 11 years ago and our feelings about it. It's a part of our culture now, for better or worse.
I sometimes wonder what my grandparents felt this many years after Pearl Harbor. By that time The War had been over for a while, America was doing pretty good, and the baby boom (when my parents were born) was in full swing. Did they remember Pearl Harbor in moments of silence and prayer ceremonies or was it over shadowed by the horror of the war, the toll it took on the young men of that generation?
Our generation is different for many reasons. So many of us, maybe all of us, have seen the horrors of the attack on the World Trade Center. We've seen the footage of the second plane hitting the second tower played over and over again on TV and now the web. Pictures of dust covered people and crushed fire trucks are part of our common memory.
I don't think that is better. I think in our media saturated society the scenes and pictures make us numb. The long running wars in Iraq and Afghanistan became common. Five of my children can't remember an America without war. It's become normal. And I hate that.
Death and destruction and gore and death should not be normal to us or our children. I'm not advocating censorship and sheltering our children from reality, but rather let's fix reality. Let's not become complacent in our remembering of 9-11, Pearl Harbor, D-Day, or any of the other horrors that are sadly part of our lives. Rather let's do something to improve the world.
Let's create beauty, so much that it outshines the darkness of war. Write, draw, paint, dance, talk, build, DO beautiful things. Let's crowd our street corners, alleyways, homes, businesses, our LIVES with so much beauty that that is what is common.
And let's start now.
