I am not gonna die this afternoon.

This whole week, it has been impossible to think about anything other than #19. I am purposely avoiding the “f” word, because it will trigger the craziness that has been its own emotional pandemic for all of us. Who the hell needs me to join an already deafening chorus?

Just in case there is any confusion, I am not a pundit, nor would I want to be one even if I could. I am just a guy, who seems to think he should share what’s going on with him. It makes me a little uncomfortable to talk about big things and use the word “We”, as if I am speaking for anyone other than my neurotic, small self. However, I do think about those things and bullshitting you is very unattractive in my book.

So, please bear with me here, because I want to talk about something as big as #19, in terms of how it marked us all. September 11th ruptured our equilibrium and scattered our emotions, like the ashes that covered all of downtown Manhattan. It was a moment when time burned to a crushing halt and we were all left without the ability to breathe. It was the rarest of opportunities, when we had a choice of how to respond. The world stood still, waiting in stunned silence. A volcano of fear then erupted from the huge hole in the ground, where the Twin Towers once stood at attention. We have been at war ever since and the loss of life has been staggering.

We are there again. We can’t stop those goddamn planes this time either. Just like then, we have choice. There are hundreds of planes with #19 painted on their wings and they are crashing all around us. Our country has reacted in the interest of money and power, compassion be damned. We had an opportunity to lead and we find ourselves on the ass end of fear one more time.

Like many of you, I get my electronic overdose of news, often impossible to distinguish between the bullshit of the buck and honest, backbreaking journalism. In times like this, it’s all there, everything you want to believe and all the rest. What the hell are we supposed to do?

Right now, at this precise moment, we are all standing in the exact same place of not knowing. How do you want to fill this vacuum, this in between time?

This is another time when we have to go inside for answers. Who am I? Who are we?

In a way, that time in September was the great equalizer. For just a handful of days, it brought the whole world together. We were all one, geography and language melted away and our hearts joined. We are there once again. This time it’s a virus that doesn’t give a shit who you are, where you’re from or what you have in the bank.

I woke up last night around 3AM, which is not all that unusual for me. I conjured this strange image of a gigantic table way up in the sky. On the edge of this table was the largest can of paint you could possibly imagine. God tipped it over and it spilled on every single person. It was a rainbow of colors, the color of humanity. Everyone looked around and realized at this rarest of times in our history that we were the same color.

I had pretty much given up on going back to sleep and I kept hearing a song by the outlaws of Country music, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson. It is called The Highwaymen. It’s about the invincibility of our spirit and how it lives on and on.

I’m not gonna die this afternoon.