It has been 18 years since the events of 9/11/2001. Like so many others alive on that day I remember it vividly and have reminisced many times over the years with feelings of sadness, anger, and more. I wrote a little about some of my feelings five years ago today in my blog post titled Where were you when…?. Today I reflect upon 9/11 through the lens of youth and adulthood.
Many people mark their lives in relation to 9/11 such that they had a particular view or experience of life before that day in 2001 and a different view or experience of life after that day. Some women gave birth to a child that day. Some people alive today were one of the children born that day. While I had just woken up for the day at this approximate moment eighteen years ago and heard my college roommate tell me, “There’s been a terrorist attack in New York”, there were women in hospitals and other settings either in intense labor pains or under the influence of labor painkiller medications about to give birth, in the middle of actually giving birth, or having just gave birth. Maybe some of those women and the fathers and families of those newborn babies also lost one or more family members or friends in the attacks or in some other way. A sadder possibility is that mothers (and fathers, etc.) to be lost their child (or children) either in the attacks, to a miscarriage, or to stillbirth. I cannot imagine the anguish people must have felt that day experiencing such intense loss. At this time I am not a parent so I cannot fully empathize. I apologize to anyone reading this who can empathize for bringing it up so explicitly. I know the anguish does not ever completely disappear.
Someone born on this day eighteen years ago is as of today considered a legal adult (in the United States at least). While their minds likely were not developed enough at birth for them now to remember their birth or any events that occurred on that infamous day, I cannot help but wonder what their life experiences have been like and continue to be. I believe that every person is unique, but the people who turn eighteen today are special such that they could be labeled “9/11 babies”. Is who they are defined entirely by the fact that they were born on a day that millions or even billions of people remember as a day that thousands of people died within a matter of a few hours in New York City? I doubt it. Ultimately no person can be summed up so simply by or defined as one single thing. Being a “9/11 baby” is only one aspect of who they are. It could be a much less significant aspect than we might think or more significant than we think. It all depends on the particular person and their perspective.
On this day eighteen years ago many people came together across the world in support of the people who died or suffered in other ways that day. It feels odd to me that such a horrific event could unite people who under other circumstances would not have given a single thought much less a second thought about one another. It wasn’t all good, though. Since that day many people developed and continue to have a significant fear of Muslims and people from the Middle East. More recently fears about other immigrant groups have grown also. While this fact evokes sadness in me it also makes an odd sort of sense. People who are angry and afraid tend to look for something or someone to blame. They feel a sense of danger and identify the source of that danger in order to address it. However, as I understand it the source of that danger is more complex than what many people think. The danger is not merely people with a particular religion or from a particular part of the world. The biggest danger is fear. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) so famously put it, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
I quoted FDR in my 9/11 post five years ago also. I did so because some of his wise words were in my view applicable to examining 9/11. The quote I referenced before was from 1941 when he spoke about Pearl Harbor and the United States entered into World War II. The quote I used today was from FDR’s inaugural address in 1933. In the past five years I have witnessed what appears to be a regression in the minds of many Americans. I recognize that this is not the first time in American history that there have been both intense struggle and deep divisions between people. During FDR’s presidency Americans dealt with the Great Depression and the early years of World War II (WWII). While we haven’t (yet) experienced an economic depression as intense as what America experienced in the 1930s, the level of economic inequality is greater than ever before. The Great Depression ended in large part thanks to the economic stimulus brought on by America’s involvement in WWII. Considering that, one likely would ask: Is it inevitable that we have another “Great War” (one might say a Third World War) in order to get out of our current economic woes?
While I do not have children of my own, I was a child myself many years ago. On many occasions I argued or even fought with my siblings and others. That’s how many supposed adult Americans and others still behave today. They bicker and fight among one other like children and do not progress. My intention is not to belittle children. They literally are little and young human beings with some admirable qualities. Young people (children) very often see the world with a sense of wonder, amazement, and appreciation. So, in one way we adults ought to be more childlike and other ways we ought to be more like adults. The way I see it, adults are or ought to be both self-aware and aware and appreciative of both the differences and similarities of diverse people and perspectives. It isn’t that children lack that quality, but it is not unheard of or illogical that children commonly do not or cannot get along well with people or beings that have perspectives significantly different from their own. Just because adults are “grown up” doesn’t mean they are no longer capable of growth. Adult brains and bodies might not continue growing and might actually deteriorate over time, but our minds and (symbolic) hearts can keep growing or developing.
We have a choice before us. It isn’t a new choice. We’ve always had it. We can choose if we want to embrace the wonder of our inner child while behaving like mature adults. Why ever would we do such a thing? For ourselves and perhaps even more so for future generations. As I see it that ought to be our guiding principle for life. A famous quote states, “We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” What kind of world do we wish to leave for them? Do we want for an event like 9/11 to happen again, either in the US or elsewhere? Do we want humans to continue killing one another because they are incapable of resolving their differences peacefully?
