Please, Please, Let's all stop talking about 9/11!

Please. We can not allow ourselves to become a nation that defines itself by its greatest tragedy. We just can't. That's not America.

This is America:

 

This is America:

 

Hell, even this is America:

 

We've always been a country and a people who defined ourselves by our triumphs. We can't allow ourselves to be defined by our greatest loss. There is already an element of that here in the South where some folks still fly the Confederate flag, and there are monuments to Confederates and the Confederacy scattered here and there. (see Stone Mountain) It's sad. 

We can't let the whole country become this guy:

 

For ten years, I've been seeing t-shirts, bumper stickers and what have you with the slogan "Never Forget!" on them. As if anyone could. No one is ever going to forget. People still remember where they were when Kennedy was shot. I remember where I was when the Space Shuttle blew up, and I didn't even care about the space shuttle. No one is ever going to forget, but we'd like to put it out of our minds. We don't want to re-live that day, that day was horrible. Why wallow in it?

 

Coming up next, a retrospective of the day your grandma died!

The only people that want to re-live that day are people who get a certain enjoyment out of righteous anger. And I get that, righteous anger can feel really good for a while. But anger, righteous or not, does things to a person. Anger wears you out. So does fear, so does hate. All the emotions you feel when re-watching 9/11 footage damage your soul. It has to stop. It's like instead of watching your wedding video, you watch a videotape of your spouse's funeral. And watch it over and over. What do you think that would do to you? Nothing good. It has to stop. We're never going to forget, but we have to get past it. We have to go back to normal life. 9/11 was a terrible terrible thing, but that people who perpetrated it are dead. The person who  masterminded it is dead. And way way too many other people who had no guilt in the matter are dead, both "ours" and "theirs." It has to stop. It's not healthy. Please, let's stop talking about 9/11. Please.