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sigh

My life has not been "normal" since September 10, 2001. I imagine it's the same for most of you.

I want my life back. I want to go back to the place where my children didn't ask me a million questions every night that I just can't answer.

Comments

What kind of questions are they asking? I can guess ('will the war be over quickly?', 'will many Americans die in the war?' those kind of questions), but I'm curious.

How about, "will I be killed tomorrow by someone I never met for no reason I can really understand?"
That's a question I stopped asking when the Berlin wall fell. Now I have to think about it again. And I just turned 30.

Red Alert ... martial law ... what does that mean? "I'll go stir crazy. There goes my social life," my kid replied after I explained.

Hell, I only just told my parents where i REALLY was on the morning of Sept 11th.

Yeah, that went well...

If you ask me, people don't want truth. They just want encouraging lies.

However, both end up destroying you if you over-use them.

My advice? Only feed fairy stories to your kids as entertainment, so that they'll enjoy hearing them everywhere they go from people that they trust for the rest of their lives.

Achievement is conditioning. Happiness is the subconscious goal, and that just a matter of luck. Oh crap...

Sweet dresa

Hell, I only just told my parents where i REALLY was on the morning of Sept 11th.

Yeah, that went well...

If you ask me, people don't want truth. They just want encouraging lies.

However, both end up destroying you if you over-use them.

My advice? Only feed fairy stories to your kids as entertainment, so that they'll enjoy hearing them everywhere they go from people that they trust for the rest of their lives.

Achievement is conditioning. Happiness is the subconscious goal, and that just a matter of luck. Oh crap...

Sweet dreams

For most of human history there have been barbarians at the gates.

That is normal.

This is normal.

Pre-9/11 wasn't normal. It was one of those brief periods where history takes a vacation.

(And it was all an illusion anyway. Fundamentalist Islam declared war on us decades ago. I'd say it started with the hostages in Iran. We just weren't paying attention).

Every generation has had their fears. The Cubam Missile Crisis. World War II. Vietnam. The Great Depression. Remember that you are not alone in your fear, whatever small comfort that may grant you.

- Evilboy

Michele and others,

At the risk of being self serving, and I am, I think you might b interested in an essay that my blogging partner wrote regarding this very issue. I think it will resonate with anyone who grew up in the cold war era who now have children and will give you an important perspective on just what are kids might be going through. I thought it was exceptionally good and I'm not alone as it has since been reprinted in other E-zines.

The essay is called Fears of a Child And don;t take my word for it, judge for yourself.

"And it was all an illusion anyway. Fundamentalist Islam declared war on us decades ago. I'd say it started with the hostages in Iran. We just weren't paying attention"

It started a few decades before that, in 1951 when Iran seized British oil reserves in Iran (it was British property; they discovered it, they drilled it, it was their technology that made it possible in the first place, and it was OK'd by Iran before hand). Saudi Arabia followed that line of thinking next, since appeasement by the West was in full swing, and they nationalized (read: seized) American oil reserves owned by Standard Oil (which was the first to extract oil in Saudi Arabia).

So, it was 50 years worth of appeasement. They've just been continuously emboldened. First we let them steal our property, and then we let them use it against us.

I'm feelin' ya, there. My life hasn't been the same either. Everyones has been turned upside down. Will it ever be the same again? That is unlikely. With shit like the Patriot Acts and faith-based legislation on the books America will go the way of Rome. It may not happen in our generation or our children's, but it eventually will happen. It took centuries for Rome to downgrade from democracy to dictatorship, I hope no one thinks it can't happen here. I miss the days of peace, too. Now, war is inevitable, and the first casualties of war are truth and tolerance. These are dark times. No one can deny that. I am with you in that I want the peace back, but we can want in one hand and crap in the other, then wait to see which one gets filled first, or we can try to make a difference wherever our conscience leads us to do so.