One Wise Man.

"Today is the day that will change your generation and eventually
define it" the words hung heavy in my conscious then and they remain
there today, following me. The weight of them not yet realized. My
sisters and I sat on the floor watching the horrible replay of events
that took place hours before. The torturous images became permanently
embedded somewhere deep down inside and they changed people. You could
see the difference in peoples faces and it's still there, the
realization that the fragile dream we all lived is now crumbled and
wounded. People reacted to it in so many different ways. Some
accumulated large supplies of dry goods, others marched their sons to
register for the draft, many became angry picking and choosing an
enemy. And I couldn't blame any of them.

"This will come down to the difference between good and evil" and he
was so right but such a statement didn't dare attempt to describe the
battle that had been subdued since the beginning of time, the one that
is now raging and rattling and surging from the inside of this very
earth. A pervasive unwillingness to coexist is fundamentally at odds
with the societies and cultures to which we belong. And it isn't
anything revolutionary but we've built these walls, some actual others
merely figurative, which we use to compartmentalize and separate
anything that is different or unfamiliar. Good and evil at this point
are only reflections of differing perceptions. There is no absolute
definition in the way my father has described over countless Sunday
evening dinner conversations. Ignorance is our enemy's greatest
weapon.

At the end of today, if we fail to realize as a nation that these
people we are fighting are human, are more alike us than they are
different, then we have already lost this war. We have given in and
handed them victory. Although absolutely nothing will ever justify the
destruction of innocent life we cannot neglect that we all have an
underlying common cause which could potentially be realized. I do not
expect people to forgive or forget the trespasses which took place
five years ago today but I would hope that they would entertain the
idea of understanding the view of the world from the other side.

Tension tears at the very seams of our existence, it comes from all
corners of this world and it would be purely stupid to think that we
can solve this the same way we have been trying to for hundreds of
years.

When I watched the first bombs fall onto Baghdad in the spring of
2003, only months before high school graduation, I held my boyfriend's
hand knowing that nothing in this world would ever be the same, that
such violence would only further isolate our part of the world from
theirs. I don't intend to say war was completely wrong and unjust
because it isn't my place to make that judgment at this time.
Something had to be done for the sake of that country, that region,
and this world. The optimist in me still believes that we can salvage
from all this damage a greater place for future generations. The
realist in me believes that our view point and their view point have
become so polarized that any kind of reconciliation will require a
great visionary capable of bridging a perpetually widening gap. The
pessimist believes that we have all gone much too far. The rest of me just
hopes for a tomorrow.