Media and politicians are called on the nation to gather today in commemoration of the 9/11 attacks.
I won't be there.
This day doesn't feel good to me.
I still hate the whole memory, the violence, the senselessness of it all, the feeling that the whole curtain of humanity had been pulled back to expose something exceptionally base -- that feeling that the world had ended, that the knit of civilization had finally been stretched to the point of popping.
Standing by the Hudson river as the first tower and then the second dissolved in front of me -- I distinctly remember how the top of the second building looked like a fountain spreading construction matter down onto the streets below -- the chemicals pouring into my brain, I thought:
The whole world is made of lies.
Everything that keeps us sane is an incredibly delicate fabric ... It's all fictions ... And I saw it ripping apart in front of me as the thousands of people fleeing downtown Manhattan finally reached us at 34th St., their faces all disfigured by the same thoughts: Everything we ever believed about the world was a lie.
Bad times.
Now we're told to celebrate the great "coming together of Americans" in the wake of 9/11.
Did that ever happen?
What I remember is the immediate sense of being abused by politicians and the media as they cruelly exploited my experiences to their own ends. I remember being taunted by them for not being "pro-American" enough. I remember being bullied into senseless wars, wars built on lies that the media and government told about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
Another diarist mused that it seems like the "9/11 store" is open year-round these days, just like those Christmas stores that you see at the mall.
What is sold at the 9/11 store is not the great "coming together of Americans."
It's abuse, bad memories, failed government and failed society.
We could have learned great lessons about that day.
But we didn't.
Setting aside the real -- and private -- memories and grief of family members of the departed ...
We'd have been better off if we'd have forgotten all about it.