The terrorists have already won.

By all means take sensible precautions. And then ride off into the sunset.

My younger online friend Bjørn Stærk has a 9/11 article in a Norwegian publication. As usual his words are filled with wisdom. If I were to extract the essence, he says that there happens very much in the world. We should look around and not let random groups of people decide our reality, whether they be terrorists or pundits. They know not what they do. The world is much more than this, and if we keep getting led by the blind, we will be blindsided again and again forever.

***

Looking at the USA, I think my headline is justified. The fragile safety was shattered, seemingly forever, and panic was made into an institution. Even now, people are being harassed by halfway-police deriving their power from that event.  And while trillions are spent chasing shadows, more people die in a day – possibly in an hour – from TV, couch and fast food, than from all terror attacks in living memory. Where are the trillions for your war on couches? Your war on fast food? Your war on passive TV consumption?

If you have nothing more to learn from 9/11, let it go. Good people are dying every day. One of those days it will be you. Don’t let a day go by without learning something, without seeing something with fresh eyes, without being alive at least for a brief moment, looking around, realizing: “I am here. This is now. I am alive in this world” before the habitual thoughts overwhelm you and sweep you away again.

 

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