9/11/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

The stars know how we work. They know we mark off moments of accomplishment and tragedy alike. They notice that sometimes we seem so eager to celebrate tragedy more.

The human brain holds onto trauma very tightly. It is an evolutionary advantage to remember things that hurt us vividly, so we can avoid them in the future and better our chances of survival. As a result, we love to replay the bad things over and over, and reopen old wounds. We get a perverse thrill out of it, because like many self destructive things, we get a little reward when we do it, a shot of endorphins.

It even comes into play with a national tragedy. While there is nothing wrong with mourning the loss of life, it is worth noting that in our zeal and panic, we also lost some of our freedoms. We also lost a whole day, now we must sit and saddle ourselves with the chore of “always remembering” and “never forgetting”, again, which is all fine and well, but hardly constructive.

There are some who also use this tragedy as a call to hatred. To demonize a whole race or religion. They know that when tensions are high, and grief palpable, we will look for someone to blame. It is easy for us to be manipulated into hating the wrong people. As always, we must know our enemy, and not be confused by the many shades of gray.

And of course there is money to be made off of it. TV programming is dominated by 9/11, images of the twin towers are plastered on everything and marketed to the public. We all buy into it and all get our little charge of endorphins, then we go on about our lives for another year.

Perhaps, just like personal tragedy, we need to turn this into a positive thing. Instead of dwelling on the tragedy of it, use this day as a day of national charity, to help others in the victim's honor. Imagine if every year millions of dollars was given to charities in the names of the people that died that day. Connecting something amazing to their names, to their deaths, rather than just thinking of them as the random victims of a horrible event.

Going out and volunteering, making 9/11 symbolize the day we help our community and the people in it, all because instead of wringing our hands and dragging out our patriotism for all to see, we did something to better the world.

What grander way would we have to show the world that what happened that day didn't weaken us, it made us stronger?

That's what New Yorkers do, that's what Americans do. For all our faults, we can be stubbornly single minded and we can really get things done, it is our legacy. There were many heroes made that day, there can be many more made even now, 15 years after the fact.

The stars know what tragedy does to us, but they also know there are different ways to deal with it, but like in all things love and compassion beats fear and hatred every time.