By Any Other Name

There are optimists walking among us, people who see the silver lining in every cloud, never look a gift horse in the mouth, and always see the world in bright, cheerful color.

I am not one of them.

I operate under Murphy’s Law. I believe that if there’s something bad that can happen, it usually finds a way to happen…and chances are good that I’ve already imagined its occurrence. Countless times. Like that cheesy Seth Green movie a decade ago, it would seem that I have an imagination intent on moonlighting for evil.

The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality test that uses neat little acronyms to categorize how we interact with others, make decisions, and perceive the world. I have my own little acronym to describe my way of thinking. I am a WCSG: Worst Case Scenario Guy.

It’s hard to be a WCSG. It takes skill to dream up the worst possible thing that can happen. Plus, there are drawbacks: never being able to tell people that you knew things- bad things- were going to happen before they did, the inability to enjoy an episode of Law and Order because the twists failed to surprise, laughing inappropriately during the supposedly scary parts of horror flicks. Years ago, a friend told me that if I were a Winnie-the-Pooh character, I’d be Eeyore. Perhaps. Nevertheless, I’ve learned to live with my ability and even accept it as a gift of sorts.

I’m not always right. My small stock of Y2K supplies proved to be utterly unnecessary. My 4-year old remains in good health and has no broken bones (that sound you hear would be me knocking on wood). The country hasn’t gone to hell in a large, uncomfortable basket.

But there’s one scenario that hasn’t entirely resolved itself.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was awakened by a ringing cell phone. My wife worked for a large reinsurance company in a building that, unbeknownst to her, would soon be evacuated because it served as Lockheed Martin’s headquarters. Judging from the missed call counter on my cell, she’d tried to reach me several times. When I finally did answer, I was…grumpy.

“Why are you calling me?” I croaked.

“Are you watching?”

“Watching what?”

“Turn on the TV.”

“What channel?”

“Any,” she said. And that was how I learned of the attack on the Towers. I watched in awe. I watched in fear. I watched.

At the time, my wife and I were living in New Jersey, a stone’s throw across the Delaware and Philadelphia where I had returned for Grad School 2.0 (a long story ultimately summed up in another nifty acronym: ABD) at Penn. The City was less than two hours up the Turnpike from where we lived and we’d driven there many times.

As details emerged, I remember thinking that if these attacks were the opening salvo of some undeclared war by some unknown country, it wouldn’t be long before the U.S. became one giant war zone. There’d be suicide bombings on street corners, biochemical warfare, snipers hiding on rooftops. Martial law would reign as the social contract, the contract that says a person should be able to go shopping at the local mall without getting blown up or poisoned, was shattered.

Though the possibilities were limitless, I tried to imagine them all.

History hasn’t unfolded exactly as I projected and I’m pleased. Yet I find myself revisiting those thoughts in light of the recent shootings in Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, New York. Are we really that far from a war zone when one has to be concerned about getting attacked on the job, in their home, church, post office, school, or convenience store? Not really.

(Side note: And why is it that so many who want to End It All feel the need to rack up a body count along the way? Why can’t they just off themselves and let that be the end of it?)

In my opinion, these folks- though Americans, all- are as much a terrorist as any member of al-Qaeda. The 9/11 terrorists succeeded- for a time- in changing the way we traveled, the way we looked at the world and our place in it. This new crop is just as dangerous and these days, recruiting is good. Whether the impetus is a lousy economy or job market, a fear that President Obama will take away their precious guns, or a urinating dog, the numbers of the disgruntled seem to be growing. And they are succeeding where al-Qaeda has struggled: to change the very manner in which we live while destroying the basic trust we have for one another as Americans and human beings.

Even for me, that seems startling.