There are times I wish we would get attacked by aliens from space.

External horror makes us unite, and brings out the best in us. My parents, aunts, and uncles (those that are left) still talk about World War II. They got the crap bombed out of them. They lived in London and were there during The Blitz. They saw horrible, horrible things, and yet they remember the time with nostalgia.

"People are mean today" they say "not like they were back then. All we had was each other. You looked after one another. You had to."

Today we bomb countries from afar, send in our young to die "over there" in the name of freedom and justice. But apart from those families whose lives have been destroyed by the deaths of loved ones, we remain untouched. It's something that happens somewhere else.

September 11, 2001, New York changed. It changed for a generation. The horror that happened there, and the greatness of the human spirit that followed, will last until those who remember the events first hand are in the minority, and another generation grows up; thinking of that day as history, without carrying the first hand pain of loss, and the feeling of camaraderie. How do we know this? Look at the black out that happened recently. If that had happened prior to 9/11, New York would have been aflame.

But the people who live there now gained something from their loss two years earlier. Something that each of us experienced in a tiny way, but which for New Yorkers burned away the accumulated crap around their hearts and souls and reminded them of what was real; what really matters: Where is my wife, my daughter, my brother, my father? Is my family okay? They will never forget that feeling as long as they live. And because they never want to experience it again, even in the eyes of someone else, they will never screw someone over without thinking. So when the lights went out, their hearts opened. And again they helped each other. They have become better humans.

It does not matter what I say here, I wasn't there. But I was there before, and after. And I saw the change. And I recognized it as something I grew up seeing in my parents eyes.

People who live through traumatic events always say they wouldn't wish these things on anyone else. And yet, as they age, and see those younger than them who were not there, walking around bitching and whining about the phones and their clothes and their lack of money, they feel another loss. Not just the loss they experienced when the war happened, or the bombs were dropped, or the buildings fell, or the earthquake hit. The loss of what they took away from the experience. The loss of the human heart, and its infinite capacity to care for people in need, whether they are our family or friends, strangers or enemies.

If there was a point to this beyond what I have already said, I must have forgotten it.

Enjoy your evening :)