Frank

It's become the "where were you" moment of several generations, all at once. Assuming one is too young either to have been alive during the Kennedy assassination or at least too young to place one's own whereabouts, and that the fall of communism is not as all-consuming a topic as it might be for some students of real politic, the aforementioned phrase is now owned by September 11, 2001--and probably will be until either something worse happens, or we all fade into dementia or death.

For everyone not in NYC, or near the Pentagon, near that field in Pennsylvania or aboard one of the ill-fated airliners that hurled their way into this dark history, 9/11 was an extremely mediated experience. It was brought to us through television, the Internet, and newspapers; through phone calls and text-messages. It was immediate, with waves of additional horror stacked one upon another in short succession.

Furthermore, it became the kernel event of so much behavior for so many. It unlocked the wildest fantasies for proponents of the Project for the New American Century, it sent us to war, and it turned legislative priorities on their heads; it became the clarion call for warmongers, fearmongers, and peaceniks alike; and it gave us new inspiration for loving each other as Americans, while at the same time, being suspicious of everyone who didn't seem quite American enough. It turned much of the country into a spiritual nuthouse.

And now we are six years on. The two wars that sprang forth from the terrorist attacks have spiraled into strange examples of foreign policy at its nadir. As Afghanistan, primarily forgotten in many of our hearts, unravels its way into a UN-sponsored replay of the Taliban-Soviet resistance debacle of the 1980's, Iraq has become an emotional sinkhole into which we hurl men and money to no reasonable avail. Every time we find out something new about how the Department of Homeland Security actually operates, it's either disheartening, infuriating or both. Politicians, having wrung the rag of fear and terror for every drop of blood left in its fiber, now distance themselves from the buzzkill that their flag-waving fervor helped create, while simultaneously trying to be not gay and not a whoremonger and not a recipient of suspect donations from wanted felons.

There was probably an innate lack of good that could've come from the terrorist attacks in question, but whatever we might have learned, we have missed it as a nation. Our relations with the Muslim world are no better, nor are we any closer to holding them in check militarily. We are not stronger in our democracy, but rather, are flirting with the disastrous loss of the 4th and 6th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as our President and certain legislators offer passionate arguments for the circumvention of antiquated courts and other checks on power. We "support the troops," but a rather small number among us are willing to actually be the troops.

But there is still a little hope. There is a little hope, and I know that it's different for us all. I know that there are those who hope against hope that the warring in factions in Iraq will beat their AK-47s into plowshares, and that we can extricate ourselves with the feeling of a job well-done. I know that there are those who feel we are just on the verge of discovering the irrefutable proof that Dick Cheney, et al, masterminded the entire 9/11 fiasco, and that swift justice will see him dangling from the gallows by year's end. And I know that there are those—some of them, blood relatives to me—who hope and pray that each new day is bringing us closer to "once again" becoming a Christian Nation, that Zion will not be far behind, and that the Rapture will be upon us in time for half-price appetizers at Applebee's. I know. I know. I know.

But my hope is this: That whenever we gather to remember our dead, be it the some 3,000 who perished in the attacks of that day, the ever-increasing number of troops killed or maimed in our various combat endeavors, or the unknown number who have found themselves swept into the human dustbin of collateral damage, we begin to understand: It's not just about us. We are not alone in this.

In the grand scheme of human history, there is nothing unusual about it. People kill. They die. It hurts.

To mourn a loved one in their passing is normal, and intrinsic to our powers of empathy and memory. It is normal, if not to say natural. But to mourn as a nation of 300 million the passing of 3,000 is somewhat unusual, especially at the interval of six years. I'm inclined to think that our national obsession with the day is a product of both our preoccupation with media—major television networks, Fox News in particular, seem to have done everything in their power not to let us move on—and our lack of travel. Because here is the nut of the thing: It is only here, in the West, that 3,000 passing in a relatively short span of time is considered unusual.

Angola. Botswana. Cambodia. Dominican Republic. East Timor. For probably every letter of the alphabet, there is a nation whose daily suffering surpasses our imagination. But we have as yet to grasp this. Six years on, and we are still ensconced in our own pain.

But it doesn't have to be this way. In a country where so many of us have more money than we know what to do with, even as we complain about the glittery things that dangle just beyond our reach, alleviating the suffering is as easy as an online cash transfer. It's as easy as a Peace Corps application. It's as easy as a food donation.

Because if there's one thing that diminishes one's own suffering, it's the plight of another.