An idea all of us should be able to get behind

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

• Friedrich Nietzsche

With all the time and psychic energy we spend yelling at and despising one another for the heresies of Those Who Don’t Think As We Do, you’d think that we’d welcome a day when we could all stand down. If we could have a day like that, when the shouting, the recrimination, and the Sturm und Drang could be replaced by sober reflection and quiet contemplation, wouldn’t 9.11 seem perfect for this?

Given the divisions in this country, and the amount of effort we devote to inveighing mightily against Those Who Don’t Think As We Do, a day off from it all might just be a very good thing. 9.11 is a day that’s powerful to most, if not all, Americans, albeit for very different reasons. I lost a friend and college classmate in one of the Twin Towers. I’ve been to Ground Zero, and, like most of us, I can still remember 9.11.01 as if it was yesterday. 9.11 is, and should be, a day when all of us can remember and reflect in our own way. The anger and the recrimination that we will passionately direct against Those Who Don’t Think As We Do will still be there on 9.12 as it is today and was on 9.10. A day off from it all won’t hurt anyone’s cause, and it might just be the best thing that all of us can do to remember the 3000+ friends and loved ones we lost on that terrible day. Not to mention those who have died since in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Really; for their sake, how about we just back off and relax today? Give it a rest, and remember what was and what might have been. Those Who Don’t Think As We Do will still be there tomorrow, and we can all resume the madness as we see fit. Let’s prove that we can still come together now as we did in the days following 9.11.

WE DESERVE BETTER…and so do those we lost.