Sign of the times
I'm constantly shocked how much love has been sucked out of the world. In the aftermath of 9/11 the American community came together, if briefly, in love and respect for one another. It didn't take long for that to disappear, though. Our world now is numb and cold. The neverending assualt on our senses by advertisment, the media, and commericalism stand as a roadblock to remembering why we're here in the first place. I've been reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln and his political contemporaries over the past few days ("Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin) and I'm amazed at the amount of emotion those alive over 140 years ago went through everyday. Can you imagine if you had 10 siblings and all but 2 died? Can you imagine what Lincoln must have gone through when he lost his mother, sister, and first (and most passionate) love before he was the age of 22? It's not hard to imagine how such events could shape the lives of those of the era, and I'm sure that those living in those times appreciated life more than any of us could hope to today.
Each one of us should cherish our friends, our enemies, and our lives. As commonplace as it is nowadays, we think about all of the things we're missing, who we want to be like, or what famous person we want to emulate. Would our lives be that worse off if for just a moment we examined the time in which we're residing, and think of all of the wonders that we take advantage of everyday, or the boundless opprotunities before us?