I briefly felt like I should try to write something profound here about this anniversary…but scanning the web, I don't see that anyone else has. We're all pretty much on the same page that it was a tragedy and here and there, I sense a certain sensation of loss that it doesn't chill us today the same way it did then. But then again, it's not supposed to. Back then, we were saying that things would never be the same again and we meant it in a different way than you get from the normal passing of time. I don't know about you but it feels to me like things got a lot closer to "the same" than I expected, a lot sooner than I expected. Few of us think about 9/11 except on anniversaries like this, when there are important (we think) political points to make or when we're at the airport and being forced to take off our shoes.
I'm not sure that's altogether a bad thing. The greatest damage of that day was, of course, the loss of human life followed by two things, and I'm not sure which is second and which is third. One was the destruction of property and damage to the economy. The other was to scare the hell out of us and make up panic and operate out of fear. The monetary devastation can never be undone but I don't think we've done a bad job of moving past the other thing.