Reanimation

Well, things haven't really changed too much. I've noticed that quite a bit. Everything's still the same as it ever was, nothing really changes. In some ways (especially one), I'm really glad that's the case. But in others, I'm not so glad. In fact, some similarities aren't as good. One is worse, the one that hurts the most.

Otherwise, so far, I've got it under control.

That said, there's a reason why I've been so quiet. Of course, we all know what Monday was. Not like you could avoid it, right? I mean, come on, let's face it: five years ago, we all lived through a major historical event that had an incredible impact on the world. You can put your conspiracies and the results in a box, tape it shut, and put it in the closet for a while, because when you get down to the reality of it, it was an incredible human tragedy.

No matter who did this, or what our government did to provoke it, the cold hard truth is that many, many people died in a very horrible way that day. And it doesn't hurt that quite a number of people survived to relay what happened, either. No matter how you politicize it, you still can't escape that fact, and many people remember this fact.

Yet here we are today. Nothing's changed. People are no less safe than they were that day five years ago. At any given moment, we could all suffer a similar fate, etching our names into history alongside terrible events. And how would people feel five years from then? Would politicians continuously use that tragedy to persue their own agendas? Would soldiers die in needless wars in your name, too, adding to the tragedy that underlies it all?

Sometimes, we forget those who died. Not those of us who lost someone close, but those of us who's connections were either distant or only through TV, Radio and Internet coverage. Those of us that, at the very least, should feel the human connection, forget all that and polarize ourselves in ways that tend to bring back the pre-9/11 bickering we did over petty politics.

The throes of history have wroght little change.

In the name of those who died, we've fallen farther into a hole dug for us by our forerunners. Our civil rights are beinig infringed upon slowly, but surely. In the name of those who died, we're being spied upon by our own government. In the name of those who died, we debate endlessly with our neighbors over issues that have no other bearing on society that irking someone's fickle morals.

People died. People continue to die. Nothing's changed at all. If anything, it's been made worse.

The death toll in Iraq alone is steadily reaching the death toll at the World Trade Center.

Instead of change, we've only chosen more death. We're no better than those who attacked us.

And we're still arguing over the wrong things: Abortion, stem cell research, what's on TV, things that shouldn't be used as footballs for each side's cause. Sure, it feeds the larger argument, the one we should be paying attention to, but it also clouds it heavily.

We've been blinded to the real reason these people died, and thusly, are doing them little justice. These were our family, our friends. These were people who helped make the world go. They had husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters. They lived real lives, just like ours. They got up, went to work, paid bills, raised kids, took vacations, went to movies - Just like we all do. They were human beings.

And they deserve alot better than what we've managed to give them. We can build all the memorial parks and structures we want. Somehow, the point has still been missed.

There was a lesson in their deaths, and many of us have failed to learn it. Some are learning it the hard way, suffering even more loss. Some are learning it and doing the wrong thing with it. I think that here, five years later, we should start remembering things a different way, the way we should.

Until then, my plan is to keep on doing what I've been doing, because it seems to be working. At least I haven't sewn myself into the wrong clothes...