A few days ago, on September 11th, I read how 100 million adults in America have no personal memory of 9/11 and realize that my two children are part of that. To Olivia and Ben, 9/11 may sound as distant as World War II sounded to me in grade school. It was another generation, another world.
But 9/11 brings tears to me right now as I listen to the Star Spangled banner played on the radio from a Ground Zero ceremony. I didn’t lose anyone that I knew that day, though my mom worked across the street from it and a good friend that I would meet a few years later was in one of the towers.
I lost the feeling of security. I lost the powerful landscape of the greatest city that I grew up in. I lost faith in humanity. I think that is what fills my tears, even now, 25 years later.
A few weeks ago, a mentally
ill mother of three stabbed two people on a crowded New York City street,
killing one. You might not be surprised to hear such a story. It seems too
common place, though the city luckily has had a record-low murder count this
year.
The perpetrator, too fat to be incapacitated by
taser, was shot dead by the police. It is one of those series of senseless
events that one would think could be avoided if circumstances were different,
but all of the mayhem just bares witness to what life really is — a series of
random moments that are not often in our control.
We think that society has safeguards and laws to
protect it from itself, but we really don’t. Little would stop someone from
obtaining a rapid-fire gun and shooting dozens of innocent people. Not much
stops someone from snatching a woman in a dark parking lot at night and raping
her. Little stands in the way of one robbing a store. And nothing stopped a
crazy person from getting a pair of knives to take another’s life on a crowded
street in broad daylight.
The system is broken. The mentally ill
population is large and growing. Meds can’t work if you don’t take them. People
can’t get better if a lack of insurance or therapist availability exists. But
even if everyone saw a doctor and doped up, it is human nature and a failure of
the mental health professional community that will always allow for such
horrible events to unravel.
Yes, you will say the chances of getting caught
have increased. Cameras everywhere. DNA testing. Everything is digitized and
recorded. But that is after the fact. Crazy people don’t let consequences get
in the way.
You will say more police and smarter citizens
can minimize vulnerability. Maybe. But opportunity exists somewhere. And
criminals are getting smarter, using more high-tech methods, and they are more
desperate. Where there is a will, there’s a way.
You will say capitalism and a good economy can
save us from society’s criminality. Even in the best of times, there are
violent and financial crimes committed. Not everything is about money. And
someone is always without.
Mental illness, childhood victimization, low
education, or one born violent can lead to newly minted criminals with
unfortunately very reliable outcomes. We can try to mitigate the damages of
human behavior, and seek to control and influence it, but we may always have
wars, murders, rapes, abuse, robberies, and acts of insanity.
Ok, maybe that is too dark. There is also reason
for optimism and hope. We may not be able to completely rid humanity of its
penchant for violence, but luckily, things have been trending positively.
Violent crimes in America are way down and the number of dead from war,
globally, is minimal compared to most other decades over the years.
So how is it that we still feel unsafe at home,
and are deeply troubled by the dead from terrorism, war, and civil unrest
abroad? Because even statistically low levels of violence is too much to
tolerate. Senseless deaths show that the globe’s social contract is broken,
that our shared values are not enough to prevent murder and mayhem.
What will save us from ourselves? Even if we
don’t kill each other or destroy the planet, will alien invasion kill us off?
Maybe dinosaur-extincting asteroids? AI gone bonkers?
In some ways, it is amazing that we are all
still here. Every day is a second chance for humanity. It is not too late. We
can’t live perfectly nor will everyone be happy at the same time. But we can do
better and strive to push back the date of inevitability that humanity will one
day perish — if not by the hand of humans, aliens, robots,
or natural shortages, then by the death of the sun in a few billion years.
Marketing Help?
Brian
Feinblum can be reached at brianfeinblum@gmail.com He is available to help authors like you to promote
your story, sell your book, and grow your brand. He has over 30 years of
experience in successfully helping thousands of authors in all genres. Let him
be your advocate, teacher, and motivator!
About Brian Feinblum
This award-winning blog has generated over
9, 750,000 page views. With over 5,700+ posts over the past 15 years, it was
named one of the best book marketing blogs by BookBaby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs and recognized by Feedspot in 2026, 2021
and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.” Copyright 2026.
For
the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He
formed his own book publicity firm in 2020. Prior to that, for 21 years as the
head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and as the
director of publicity at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many
first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with
best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen,
Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard,
Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C.
Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler.
His
writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s
The Independent (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/whats-needed-to-promote-a-book-successfully) and (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/10-things-my-dog-taught-me-about-marketing-books). He was recently interviewed by the IBPA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0BhO9m8jbs
He
hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and
has spoken at ASJA, three times at BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers
Association, Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod
Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, five
times at Morgan James Publishing Red Carpet, and Connecticut Authors and
Publishers Association. He served as a judge for the 2024 IBPA Book Awards.
His
letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal,
USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester)
and The Washington Post. His first published book was The
Florida Homeowner, Condo, & Co-Op Association Handbook. It
was featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.
Born
and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids,
and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.
You
can connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum/ or https://www.facebook.com/brian.feinblum
