Quotable | Broken

Good old 'Uncle' Walt. In just a few words from "A Song of the Rolling Earth," he nails a concept that is essential for healing in this Post-9/11 world:

I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete, The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken. Leaves of Grass > A Song of the Rolling Earth [line 100] Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

The men who carried out the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the men who hijacked United 93 were jagged and broken, and they were spurred on by jagged and broken men. This is a quality they carried in their souls, and as such it informed the way they looked at the world. That is why they could do such a heinous thing. I truly think that there is no way a person who has some semblance of completion within him or herself, and how is able to look upon the world as a wondrous thing, could have participated in such violence.