Sure, I guess it sucks to be me if I'm insulted by what's on your blog. You blogged it for your own benefit; thus, I'm blogging this for my own sake, getting this off my chest. I might be feeding the troll, but I really don't give a rat's ass; it's none of my concern whether or not you (as in you, Shell specifically) read this and whether or not you try to argue me down. I'm just sayin'.

Sure, it's a free country, and everyone's entitled to their opinion.

My opinion is that you're a pretentious bitch.

Oh, I know that probably doesn't affect you. After all, I am a statistic, and you are a statistic, and together neither of us matters at all in the grand scheme of things. How can anything made of carbon and water and oxygen actually matter? Oh, woe, there are six billion of us and we're puny and self-absorbed and we get all schmaltzy over something that only affected a handful of us.

You (in my opinion) cynical, sad asshole.

We mourn the inevitable because loss of life is so damn sad. There are so many things in life, little and big, that are insignificant in the flow of time: kindnesses, sunsets, marriages, moments of pride. Okay, sure, in a thousand years or a hundred or even fifty they might not mean much. But to someone, to some one or two or dozen or hundred people, there is something in life that has meaning. Losing those moments, knowing that someone will never spend just five more minutes in bed before class or kiss their wife or eat an omelet--yes, it has to happen sometime, but dammit, there's a hole there.

People may not matter to the strict mathematics of the universe, but they matter to each other.

There is more to humanity than meat. Just because we're made of a bunch of chemicals doesn't mean that our emotions--any emotions, not just those connected to a tragedy--amount to nothing. Yeah, people feel things for the wrong reasons sometimes. We do stupid shit; we let our emotions guide us where clear logic should, and vice versa. We are a work in progress. We get upset over things, we get passionate, we hurt each other, we dream, we cry, we love. Does it mean anything? We can't know. What will it do in the grand scheme of things? We can't have any idea. Nobody can see ahead to that day when everything, in some way or another, comes together and actually means something.

And there's another thing. You say, unequivocally, that there's no God of any kind waiting for us when we die.

How the fuck do you know?

Please, do enlighten me. I'm all ears. Do you have solid, scientific or mathematical proof that there isn't a God? Because if you have it, I'd love to see it. And I'm sure that a lot of other people would, too.

Until or unless you produce that proof, however, you don't know and neither do I.

There's no proof either way where God is concerned. That doesn't make faith--and I'm not talking Bible-thumping, here, just faith--unworthy or illogical. I'm surprised that you, as somebody who are an active fan--a thing that requires suspension of disbelief, and a certain amount of extrapolation beyond the raw facts of what are presented in an image or a story--are so contemptuous of the idea that humans can be passionate about something they can only really imagine.

I'm surprised and I'm disappointed. The physical reality of death, of someone leaving their body behind, has nothing to do with the spirit/mind/heart/whatever you want to call it. And I don't care how many dead bodies you've seen, I don't care how many philosophy teachers and forensics professors have drilled into you that this is the End--when it comes right down to it, what happens to a person once they're dead is not something you can ever know.

And until you know for sure--id est, until you find yourself no more than a rotting sack of meat--be advised. People like me will bother you for solid, measurable proof (not "such-and-such a bad thing happened to me/other people, so there can't be a God"; I'm talking numbers, statistics, and facts) that faith is absolutely baseless and pointless because it contributes nothing to life and has no point of focus.

In short, we've got your number.

And you know what? I actually don't hope that this will change your mind vis-a-vis anything at all. I hope that you continue to live your life by these cynical principles, looking at people as nothing but meat and electrical brainfirings, viewing the world as "kill or be killed, so suck it up and get over it". And I hope that when you die, you find your proof as a kind God takes your consciousness from your body and holds you close and showers you with unconditional, joyful love. That when you realise what's happening to you, you look back on your life and see all the little things about humanity you missed, that you see your arrogance in its full extent, and that you somehow made it to a peaceful, bliss-filled afterlife anyways.

In my opinion, nothing could be more appropriate.

i saw your face, and i ascended...
09:03 p.m., Wednesday, September 11, 2002

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I've always been full of big talk.

When I was little, I used to tell my sister that if anyone picked on her at school, I'd come over and beat them up. Later I bragged to friends about how, if anyone made them miserable, I'd find the person upsetting them and make their lives a living hell. I always got politely turned down, sometimes hugged, and in a way I was glad nobody ever took me up on those offers. Because, y'know, I'm a big pussycat.

Last year, I couldn't even brag.

The nation's done a lot of bragging since then. A lot of good bragging, really. People have given money and time and energy and their own blood, because they'll be damned if they let some asshole with a grudge back them into a corner.

I'm writing this, and the wind outside is kicking up. The trees in this neighbourhood are almost dancing.

I'm going to do some bragging of my own today. I'm going to go out and order manga. I'm going to walk around in Washington, DC; I'm going to ride the subway. I'm going to smile at everyone I see. I'm going to email my friends and call some of the people I love, and, yeah, dammit, I'm going to write fanfic.

Because my boast is essentially this: I may be afraid of the dark. I may be afraid of being alone. I may be afraid of what is essentially really stupid shit. But I'm not afraid of standing up and saying, you know, I might not always be proud of this country, but last year I was, and I have no doubt that if something happens again--today or any other day--everyone will come together and be something extraordinary. No matter how far away from it or how close I am, I know that if any stupid shit tries to do this again, there will be compassion and bravery and really amazing patience to shame them.

My mom claimed that her mother always told her "They can kill you, but they can't eat you."

That's kind of untrue.

But what is true is that "they"--anyone with so little brain that a repeat of last year seems like a great idea to them--can try all they want, but they'll never be able to get rid of or match the selflessness everyone saw last year.

We're better not because we're Americans, but because we can love others and care for them, regardless of whether God enters into the equation for anyone involved.

And, as I would have said when I was six and full of promises to beat up anyone who laid a hand on the people I loved--
So there.

i saw your face, and i ascended...
10:08 a.m., Wednesday, September 11, 2002

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