Wisdom Teacher Elaine Springer asked the following question today out on LinkedIn Answers …

How can we make the memory of 911 into a positive experience?
http://tr.im/911li

I have included my response to this rather interesting question below and encourage you to go out and respond directly on LinkedIn or post comments here on the old SMN blogSite …

I think that if we focus on the amazing way that the people of NYC came together very shortly following the tragic events of that day … if we look at the pre-marketed honest and tremendously giving community of people from the neighborhoods that were directly hit and effected … THAT’s the story that shows the power of humanity and the decency and respect we can all have even during a truly horrific circumstance.

After that though … it quickly all turned to propaganda. All this Giuliani bullsh!t. All this near pre-idiot Dubya stuff. And then, of course, war.

I think a more powerful and positive ( but nearly impossible ) response for the US would have been to hold back our natural, prehistoric urges to kill back at ‘em and just hold our head up high, focus on our own people and rebuilding our strength, courage, determination and that set of festering holes in the ground. If we didn’t fly divebomb Afghanistan and then if we didn’t quickSwitch hoof it over to Iraq ( clearly NOT linked at all to the events of the terroristic attack ) to settle some delayed score or debt from 1992 or whatever … I think that if we just took it on the chin ( as unrealistic as this would have been, I guess, knowing the unfortunate nature of Mankind and ‘civilization’ at large ), THAT might have been a more powerful example to set for the world. Nationbuild at home first. RegimeChange the mindset of our ‘civilized’ leaders. Show the world that we understood the precarious and elusive nature of Al Qaeda as a loose band of terrorist cells ( very much based on the elusive nature of a corporation, a thing that exists as a target only on paper ) and that to attack unaffiliated nations of people would be more of a disservice to the notions of freedom, liberty and ‘The American Way’ than a good thing for the world. Maybe then we wouldn’t be so entrenched in horrible, ridiculous reality television while talented droves of young people, so full of positive potential for our nation and the world, get sent over to defend us and our freedoms ( freedom to use cellphones, freedom to update my status 3 times a day, freedom to go from Dancing with the Stars to House to repeats of Boston Legal, freedom to judge and be judged, freedom to stop people that are in love from getting married ) at the risk of being maimed, hurt, killed … or even worse yet … emotionally scarred and changed forever to only return home and feel like a walking stranger in their very own communities.

I hope its not like that for everyone … I don’t know … I guess I try to imagine and empathize ( as a user experience design, empathy is extremely vital and necessary … we can’t improve without feeling something for our users’ pain ) … but I know I could never truly know or understand the plight of our brave soldiers … soldiers going over without adequate defense at times, without full and adequate training … but, even though the bitter aftertaste of what has happened since the attacks on New York can ruin that amazing spirit that immediately followed the events of that day, the bravery and spirit of these young ( and sometimes not so young ) American people extend that feeling … they are trying to protect us and simultaneously bring peace to a land ( whether its wanted or not unfortunately ) that has been so twisted up in hatred and constant chaos that I fear we’ll never truly see the day peace comes to the world to shake us all awake and make us feel united, as one global people.

We should all act like the brave people on rebuilding missions overseas and like the phenomenal people that came together to help each other on the days following the events of 091101.