9/11.
I’m writing this as a blog post but don’t know if I’ll send it. I was going to delay posting a blog on my usual Wednesday schedule, out of respect for 9/11 and the great patriotic content that a lot of other people usually are putting out. But today I jumped on Instagram and Facebook to feel good, to feel proud about being an American, or even a human being, and I don’t.
I didn’t watch the presidential debate last night because I didn’t want to watch two people yelling at each other. What I found online this morning is that they didn’t have the chance to interrupt each other’s speeches because their mics were turned off when the other was speaking, that was good. But the highlights that I found were still hard to watch, and scrolling though comments was worse. We’ve become so divided as an American public, and I found myself saying “just forget about it, politics is just politics”, but it’s more than that – there is some serious hate out there. People are attacking others that they don’t even know, just because of that person’s identity or which “side” they’ve aligned themselves with.
I used to actually look forward to 9/11 every year because it was a time for us all to look back and remember the people that were lost that day, and maybe even remember the weeks and months afterward – when we are all together. We were united as a country and as a world against evil. Maybe what came out of that, the war on terror, was not a good thing in the end, because it was a war. And that longstanding war created a feeling of aggressiveness, of hostility toward other people. That has transcended the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, with professional soldiers who are paid to be aggressive and carry out hostilities in the name of their flag, and it has pervaded American society.
I want us to be better, as American citizens. We shouldn’t need a national tragedy to unite us and push us forward to being a great nation and a beacon of truth and hope for the world.
I don’t know where you stand on politics, or who you’re planning to vote for. Both presidential candidates have earned the right to stand up on their platform and tell us what they would do if given a chance to govern us in the next four years. Maybe you’re voting based on a certain issue, like abortion, or gun control, or future wars. That’s all great, and that’s the point of our political system – informed citizens can elect leaders, or even become leaders, based on the change that they want to see in the world. But let’s stop attacking each other and vilifying the “other side”. It doesn’t need to be that way.
I had a whole series of blog posts planned out for today and the next few weeks, informing our members on the types of workouts that we do at CrossFit Kent Island and why we do them, the physical and mental benefits they will get from each training session. But this seemed more important for me today, on 9/11. I’ll get back at it next week, I promise. But today, let’s take a pause, and remember that we are human beings, each with a purpose. I don’t think any of us would say that our purpose is to hate others, or to cause them harm. Let’s move forward this week with courage and love, remembering those that we have lost, and fighting to do better for them.
9/11/2024
Ryan