Extremes

It was a week of extremes. From extreme weather in Alabama to the extreme sugariness of the royal wedding to the extremely surprising news of the death of Osama Bin Laden, it’s overwhelming.

I have a hard time celebrating the death of anyone.  It isn’t in my nature.  I remember where I was on 9/11/2001, and can still feel the anger and helplessness of that day.  The memory is filled with crushing grief and disbelief for all the death.

I will also remember where I was when President Obama announced Bin Laden had been killed.  It was again an ordinary day and I felt the same kind of grief.  This time for the thousands of young people who have given their lives in the service of stopping him and for a collective human soul that simply can’t stop hating and killing each other.

It is interesting to me that most of the celebrants in the streets were college students who would have been in elementary school on 9/11.  I wonder how the “War on Terror” has impacted them… maybe more than we thought it did. We tried to protect them from the anxiety, but perhaps they needed the symbolic release more then we knew.  They are certainly the generation that fought this war. It is also possible that the young are the only ones with the energy to dance in the streets, for anything.

Perhaps it is not about anxiety or energy, perhaps it is just about experience.   After a certain time in one’s life it is hard to celebrate death for any reason.  Don’t miss-understand, I am glad Bin Laden is gone.  I am glad that his influence and terror are stanched.  I also realize that there was probably no other way to stop him.  It is what it is.  But it isn’t a celebration unless we have somehow mitigated our collective instinct to strike out.