| TED SPEAKS...ABOUT POST 9/11 |
| MOURNING BECOMES US |
January,
2002
A friend wrote:
"Except for the week following 09/11, the national mourning, if that's what it was, seems to have evaporated rather quickly. In NY, I know it was more intense, because of those weeks and weeks of memorial services, not to mention the pall of smoke that finally, three months later, cleared away after all the fires were finally put out. But the rest of the country, it seems to me, stuck a cheap flag on its antenna almost like a talisman against the Evil Eye, and went on about its business."
My response:
Just how well Americans are coping with their losses is a matter of perspective. We construe the ability to carry on in the face of tragedy as a sign of heath, true enough. After all, isn't that what the fearless Dr. Bush ordered for our nation? Get on with your lives, he said Take that vacation. Buy that dress. Enjoy your holidays. Be strong. Don't give the Enemy the victory by allowing fear to rule your lives. Show the world what Americans are made of. Oh yeah, and…uh, watch your ass while you're at it. There's credible evidence that what we experienced on 9/11 may be only the beginning of woes. But are we hiding under our beds? Hell, no! Knock us down, and we'll bounce back again. Destroy our World Trade Center, and we'll erect another one. Lop off one of our heads, and we'll grow ten new ones. If you prick us, do we not bleed? You bet, and there's more where that came from. 'Cause Americans ain't afraid to sacrifice, ain't afraid to die, ain't afraid to live, ain't afraid of nothin'. And besides, the First Lady has personally assured every man Jack and Jill among us that everything's going to be okay. Doesn't that make us all feel so much better? (Not to worry. If you missed any part of Laura Bush's "Leavin' on a Jet Plane", or wish to see it again, there'll be another telecast tomorrow afternoon after the playoffs.) If it now takes us four hours to board a flight while security x-rays our luggage and traces our ancestry, what of it? Wanna inspect our shoes? Fine! Inspect them! We have nothing to hide. And if a deranged schmuck someday decides to ram a dynamite stick up his butt hole, that's okay, too---we'll drop our draws behind a screen and bend over for the sake of security. The American people are patient. The American people understand the need for safety. The American people have no place they really have to get to in a hurry---or at all, when you come right down to it. There are times when even the hardiest among us would just as soon hang out at home, eating frozen pizza, watching reruns of "The Jeffersons" and boring ourselves into a funk. But we're movers. We're planners. We're big dealers. It may take us a while to whip ourselves back into action. But eventually we'll be forming lines behind cashiers and ticket counters as in olden days, jamming the local theater to catch the first sequel to the last prequel of "Star Wars", camping outside of K-Mart in 30 degree weather to grab up the new "Kaisers and Caves" virtual reality video game the moment the doors open. We're driving again, flying again, buying again. We're jogging 'round the block again, trying to lose those ugly pounds. We're looking good. We've got big hearts, big ideas, big wallets---and big holes we're trying desperately to fill.
[Come to think of it, those "ugly pounds" may prove to be our most loyal friends yet. They hang in there through every crisis; they follow is wherever we go; they stick with us, and to us, through thick and through thick.]
If, in fact, Americans, in general, appear to be moving forward after the September tragedies, I see that as a miracle of the human spirit. But appearances don't tell the whole story. What we perceive as "business as usual"---commerce, travel, entertainment, etc.---is often driven by spiritual emptiness. (Not a terribly original observation, I'm afraid.) And that was true even before 9/11. We (rhetorically) are scarred by wounds, personal and collective, which we can barely remember. I'm not saying this applies to everyone, of course. But I do believe that the need for consolation plays a major part in much of what motivates the consumer: what he eats, and how much; the music he listens to; the movies he watches; the time he spends in front of the tube; the sort of crap he buys, and so forth. Much of our consumption is compulsive, dictated by tradition, motivated by guilt, fueled by a cattle mentality.
There's Christmas, for example: a barometer of economic health and morale. Very disappointing this year, retailers will tell you. They didn't see the buying frenzy they'd come to expect this time of year---certainly not the boom they were hoping would dig businesses out of the post 9/11 doldrums. And that's understandable, given the downturn the economy had been taking even prior to September. Some of the largest behemoths have had the air knocked out of them. Workers are being laid off by the tens of thousands. The stock market has taken some scary dips in recent months. There are other factors, I'm sure, and I don't pretend to be a business analyst. But let's say Christmas, 2001 had been the economic bonanza everyone had hoped for. What would that have proven? Only that people had fallen into the same manic rut they always fall into during the holiday season. Or, as Edgar Lee Masters so aptly put it: "Running around the yard till the day of the block". Doesn't matter whether or not people even like Christmas or derive any happiness from it. Christmas isn't something one enjoys as much as it is something one DOES---shopping, stressing, kvetching, inundating the world with cards and tinsel and car exhaust, dragging out the same old songs, "rum-pum-pumming" oneself into a nervous breakdown---as though, by repeating this holiday ritual year after year after year, one might somehow connect with a time in consciousness past when all this tiresome horse poop used to mean something…IF it ever did. For many, Christmas may be nothing more than a memory of a memory. But I digress.
What is my point? Americans don't have to go around in sack cloth and ashes to "mourn". They do so by living the life to which they are accustomed. It's a life filled with escapes and traditions---and consolations---that shield them from their sorrows while leaving them too busy and too broke to pursue their real goals. Don't shout, don't cry, don't pout, don't ask, don't tell. We're not a nation of sulkers. We're DOERS. We carry on.
What about this swell of patriotism we've been seeing since the September attacks? Well, I think that national pride is essentially a fine thing. It did my heart good to see Americans getting all stirred up and showing their colors, at least at the beginning. Okay, so I'm one of those guys with a cheap flag on my truck antenna---actually, Jann put it there, but I like it. It stays. I'm not saying that this sort of bumper-sticker patriotism won’t eventually degenerate into yet another feel-good obsession in this country. That's how Americans have become about practically everything, as I'm sure you've noticed. Never know when to stop. Gotta jump on the bandwagon and do a thing to death, whether it's Christmas cards, Barbie Dolls, Elvis revivals, Harry Potter lunch boxes---whatever. But for the most part, I believe the patriotic sentiment (minus the yabba-dabba hoop-di-lah element) is genuine. I know mine is. (Running around in red, white and blue boxer shorts and garters: Now there's where I draw the line.)
A number of people who have been interviewed have reported finding new meaning in their lives since the tragedies of 9/11. They're re-evaluating what's most important to them, spending more quality time with friends and loved ones. So they say. They're trying to eliminate the crap and clutter that compromises relationships and wastes precious time. How wonderful, if that were true! Americans are grateful to be alive, as well they should be. They realize they there's no guarantee of tomorrow, and that the rain falls on both the just and the unjust. (God said that a long time ago, but many of us have to find that out the hard way.) Others, it seems, have sunken into deep depression. They're afraid to leave home. They can't work anymore, those that still have jobs. They feel it's pointless to invest ones hopes and labors in a world that could be so easily blown out from under them. Are they wrong to feel that way? Of course not.
Pointlessness is an integral part of life. Really. I'm not making this up. If you don't believe me, read Ecclesiates. Wasn't such an issue until now. Seems people are finally getting wise to the game. Some have sought counseling. Others have sought "religion". Most, however---whether urgently or reluctantly---just "keep on keeping on".
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. Always has been. I think it's a lot more audible these days than it used to be, especially after September 11th. Have you noticed how America has been dragging out the proverbial scrapbook in recent years? I say that that's a sure sign of the times, like the pink edges that begin to form on the adding machine tape when you get close to the end of the role. We seem obsessed these days with re-living the old times, with observing “the way we were.” We're reviving fashions from the past. Styles that were dorky just a few years ago have become hot items once again. Just when you thought you were safely past the 60's and early 70's, behold, a new generation of young people are going around in bell bottoms. "Classic rock" has become an industry unto itself. You can't get away from it. ("Groove to the hits of the 80's, with a dash of the 90's thrown in for good measure," I heard a DJ announce over a pop station someone else was listening to. Egads! You've got to be kidding! That's like spitting into a toilet to make it taste better!) Ditto for "classic television". Magazines and airwaves are bombarded with ads for music and video collections. Why, a person can now purchase the entire canon of "I Love Lucy", or "Twilight Zone", or "The Red Skelton Comedy Hour" on VHS or DVD, and enjoy these episodes in his own home anytime he wants to. There are---who knows?---dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of books and magazines (Time-Life heads the list) covering the Depression, the early days of radio and television, World War II, the 50's, the 60's, JFK, Vietnam, the space program…on and on and on. The market is bursting at the seams. The movies are no different.
I don't say there's anything wrong with looking back. I'm merely pointing out a trend. I'm all for exposing our children to America's historical and our cultural legacy. But it's the adults, not the kids, who are tanking up on this stuff, trotting out the past, re-examining it one last time---much the way a symphony's final movement rehashes all it's prior motifs before finally drawing to a conclusion.
"This is how we were. This is where we came from. This is what we looked like. This is what we watched. This is what we listened to. This is what made us laugh, made us cry, made us proud."
We're like a dying man watching his entire life pass before his eyes.
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