Finding the right track

One really neat thing about keeping this blog is that it helps me remember things I would have assuredly forgotten. For example, it is quite simple to find what I was thinking on this date for the last two years.

On 11 September 2012, my post was primarily about the scans I had that finally confirmed that the suspicious areas on my MRI scans did not represent active tumor cells. At the beginning of the post, I simply wrote

Eleven years, and it is still hard to believe it really happened. What more can I say?

The start of the 11 September 2013 post was about able-bodied people taking advantage of accommodations for the disabled at Disney World. I ended by saying,

Is this the lesson we have learned from the horrific events on this date in 2001? Has the glimmer of hope and decency and shared purpose that we saw in the dark hours and days following that tragedy been replaced by despair and self-interest and cynicism?

I appreciate that this seems a very small concern next to discussions of military intervention in Syria. But perhaps the root cause is the same: our human tendency to view ourselves as more important than anyone or anything else. That tendency has undoubtedly led to a multitude of inspired ideas and inventions that have enhanced human existence. Our survival depends on our being able to keep the negative aspects at bay. Are we up to the task?

Here we are on September 11^th of 2014, the “Bar Mitzvah¹” anniversary of that horrible day, and history seems to be repeating itself. As in 2012, my MRI last week provided good news. But sadly, the situation in the Middle East seems even more frightening than in 2013.

One of the games I play on Lumosity is called “Train of Thought.”  It involves a set of different colored trains that each needs to make its way to the station of the same color, crossing tracks that must be shifted along the way.  Like all the games on Lumosity, once a level is mastered, the software moves to the next, more challenging level. The more difficult the level, the more trains are moving along simultaneously and the more tracks are required be rerouted in order for the trains to reach their respective stations. The game is intended to help improve the ability to function with “divided attention.”  This is not to suggest that this skill will enable driving while texting, but like operating a motor vehicle, the rapid-fire decisions revolve around deciding which of a number of competing urgencies should be handled first.

If only we could agree on which of the myriad issues in the Middle East should be resolved first and focus on getting past those, perhaps we could once and for all bring all the trains safely home to their stations. Sadly, the world does not seem to have learned much during these 13 years since the 11^th of September in 2001. The immense sorrow will never end, but the time has long since come for the people of the world to reach maturity and find the track that leads to peace.

Love,

Rebecca

¹ “Bar Mitzvah” (son of the commandments) is the coming of age (13 years) for a Jewish boy, after which he is responsible for observing Jewish law. The feminine form is “Bat Mitzvah,” which occurs at 12 years of age.