Perhaps its a cliche, and I've made my feelings clear about the way we wear this day on our sleeves, which I don't care for. But it doesn't seem right to let the day go by without commentary of some kind.
I've been thinking a bit about how we've behaved since that day 8 years ago. The craziness recently; Glenn Batshit Beck's 9/12 Initiative that links to TeaBaggers and other hypocritical nonsense with what I think are the wrong lessons.
All of it, I think, stems from Fear. Whenever I watch Dick Cheney, I not only see a man who is fear mongering, but who is also mongered by fear.
Right or Left we are all Americans, all scarred and all fearful. But what happened to us is not what makes us. Its how we hold to what we stand for afterwards that shows us for ourselves.
Fear is what makes us open the old wounds every year. Fear is what makes us small and keeps us from taking action. Fear is what causes the invasion of the wrong country and missing the ball entirely. Fear is what makes us go on and on about future attacks instead of remembering what we stand for and how we can make this world safer, truly safer. Fear makes us vengeful.
But we can't overcome national fears if we don't overcome our own. And so, geek that I am, I offer two thoughts on fear. One from my favorite book, Dune by Frank Herbert, the other from one of my favorite shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
From Dune; the Litany of Fear, spoken by warriors of all kinds.
"I must not fear
Fear is the mind-killer
Fear is the little death
That brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will allow it to pass over me
And through me.
When it is past I will turn the inner eye
To see its path.
Where the fear was, there will be nothing.
Only I will remain"
From an episode of Buffy. Halloween when Gaknar the fear demon is revealed. He is 4 inches tall.
Xander: (playfully)Who's the little fear demon. Who's the little fear demon?"
Giles: Xander, don't do that.
Xander: (suddenly worried) Why, will it anger him?
Giles: No, because it's tacky.
In pace requiescat.
2 comments:
Another great post! I re-watched "Bowling for Columbine" a few weeks ago and the best part of that movie was when he talks about all the fear mongering. There are so many things we are encouraged to be afraid of. It keeps us small and under control....
Excellent post! Thank you.
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