11 years have passed. I often wonder what the world would be like if this never happened. Would there be less conflict? Less hate? Less anger? Would there be more compassion? More acceptance? More peace? Every year on September 11, I remember my puzzled sixth grade self as we stood for a moment of silence as our principal explained what had happened.
As of a week ago, I have had to make a commitment to keep up to date with news on a daily basis, due to the nature of the field I will be pursuing for my future career. I won’t deny that it seemed like a difficult task, mainly because I only read about things that interest me, such as sports and entertainment and specific political and global conflicts.
Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love was nothing short of humorous and entertaining. And as intelligent and witty as her prose was, I found myself enjoying the book more in the beginning than when I had finished it. Jennifer Egan wrote a review for the New York Times and I think she was accurate in saying that the reader is left yearning to know more about the unresolved things Gilbert chose to leave out rather than the flowery and cliché events and ending of the novel.
I read an article recently by Tariq Ramadan, who is a professor at Oxford University, about the teachings of Ramadan. It was a beautifully written article, and an accurate reflection of the essentials of this holy month. The reason it stood out for me was mainly that I felt I connected to it in its entirety. He says in the beginning sentences of the article that the “fasting month is a school of faith, of spirituality, of awareness…”