I can remember the first time I realized the world was basically evil, and not the happy-go-lucky-full-of-rainbows-and-butterflies place most children start out believing it is: I was six, almost seven at the time, and JonBenet Ramsey's face was plastered all over the television screen. I thought we were the best of friends (obviously, we were not, as I had never met the girl frm Colorado), but at that tender age, I was old enough to grasp the concept that something horrific had happened to her, but too young to realize the monstrocity of the act itself. All I knew was this little girl, who was just a few months younger than I was, was dead, and my world was no longer the sparkly, pleasant place I had once known.
Fast forward almost five years, I'm sitting in my 6th grade science class, watching on TV something about an airplane crashing into a building in New York City. Eleven years old, not particularly interested in what was going on. An accident of somesort, or so they believed, until the world watched as a second plane, no doubt intentional this time, plowed into the adjacent tower. My eyes were glued to the screen, interest suddenly peaking in my fragile brain. Since the JonBenet case, not much else had rocked my small world, until this day when my belief that the world wasn't pretty was confirmed.
I didn't fully grasp the concept of 9/11 until a few years later, once the country was at war. To this day, I am still shocked and baffled by it, as I'm sure most of the country is and will always be. Something to that magitude will never be completely understood, because it will never be explained, it will never make sense, it will never seem real. Just like the Oklahoma City bombing and the anthrax scare and the razors in the mail and the case of Jonbenet Ramsey along with countless other unsolved murders. As a nation, we've come to fear just about everything because we've been taught through terror and scares and scandals and homicides that the world around us, the people we share this planet with, are out to get each other. And we blame the media and the culture of others and ignorance and greed and envy. But shouldn't we be simply blaming ourselves, as people, instead of the actions themselves? Because without a human brain making all the decisions, the greed and lust and idolatry can do nothing but fester until a decision is made.
I am by no means saying we blame should ourselves for the atrocious things that this country, and so many others, have gone through: I'm simply stating that as a country, as a people scared out of our wits, we need to learn to live in something other than fear. We are told by everything and everyone from day one that we should fear everything and everyone because the world is basically a bad place, there just happens to be some good in it, and you're lucky if you find it. As a little girl, feeling this longing need to befriend JonBenet Ramsey and know her, I wasn't able to grasp the idea of the horrendous fate she received, and yet as an adult 15 years later, I still don't completely understand it. Research can only get you so far. And because of things like this, we continue to live our lives in fear because we know no different.
We can't let our children play outside in fear of them getting snatched from our surburban streets. We can't fly in planes for fear of it being hijacked. We can't leave our doors unlocked in fear of burglars. We can't walk the streets at night in fear of muggers, rapists, murderers, etc. Even something as simple as we can't fall in love in fear if getting our hearts broken is etched into our brain from a young age. Yet, we have grown comfortable in this life, comfortable enough that the monotonous routine of being scared is just another day we float through, hopefully unscathed and unharmed, just to do it all again the next day.
When is it time to not be scared? When are we supposed to live by our own rules and make our own way in life, instead of living how the world tells us to? How are we supposed to be a civilized people when everyone keeps fucking things up for the rest of the world and making us all afraid again, because the world taught us that's how it's supposed to be and it will never be any different.
Today, I did not watch TV. I did not listen to the radio. I have the utmost respect for those who lost their lives on 9/11, for those who suffered a loss, and for those who survived: they have gone through more than I would ever wish on my worst enemy and have probably dealt with it so much more graceful than I would have ever thought possible. But as someone who already lives with a fear of the world and everyone in it, I spared myself the added emotional turmoil from the documentaries and dramatizations. It is a day in history we will never forget, a day we will teach our children about, a day we learned from, a day that made us united in a way we had never seen before. And a day that made us fear so much more than we did the day before.
So this quickly went from rational to rambling, but hey, it's what I do.
Loves.
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