With streamers of red and blue lofting lazily overhead, the guests who had come to celebrate Finn’s first birthday sang the Birthday Song to the little 1-year-old’s glee. He smiled softly, hid his face behind his cup of milk and watched the little candle flicker before him. His mother and sister helped him blow it out, and he gingerly ran his finger across the frosting. In a few moments, the little chocolate cake and white icing was smeared all over him. It was sheer bliss; simple, requiring nothing but the moment and a gathering of loved ones to bring about happiness - the way a birthday should be.

Our little Finn reached his first birthday last Friday. On Thursday, 9/11, I’ll be 31. I hope for the same simplicity and easy happiness as he experienced, but this is the adult world. Things aren’t so easy.

My birthday is shared by one of the worst and sobering moments in American history. Seven years have passed since the Twin Towers fell. Seven years since the world changed forever. Still, as I reflect on my birthday, just like the rest of the world, it is impossible for me to separate the significance of that day.

Seven years have passed, and hatred, war, and injustice are just as prevalent in the world, even more so, as they were on Sept. 10, 2001. The only difference is we have become the main antagonists, or reactionaries depending on which side of the coin you chose to call, to the violence.

This year is marked by an announcement in a reduction of troops fighting in Iraq and an increase in those stationed in Afghanistan. The Taliban still exists, Osama is still in hiding and oil prices continue to increase with our dependence upon it. We eye a presidential election that hopefully will change the direction of our world in the post-9/11 era. For my children’s sake, I have to believe it’s true.

On this birthday, I scrape together enough cash to put gas in the tank and leave my children at home, happy and carefree, the way the nation seemed before terrorists hijacked planes and smashed them into high-profile buildings; an attack on the very psyche of the nation, killing thousands, unsettling hundreds of millions. And as my children fill their lives with art and music and the discoveries of this brave new world they find themselves in, I struggle to find even a plausible explanation for the questions that will come when they get a little older. Honestly, I cannot say what truly happened to us all that day or why so many soldiers are far from home today.

I have always been predispositioned to question the truth, which is the likely reason I ended up in this profession. I have always had trouble taking their word for face value. I do not disrespect those that died. I mourn them and grieve that the injustice done to them may never be revealed, no matter how many bombs we drop or rhetoric we spew.

For my part, I wish to forget all this - 9/11, war, anger, oil, hatred, propaganda, society. When did it become so complicated? Who made modern America so difficult? Why must we toil for a fistful of dollars when we all know the only thing that matters is our families? Why must life pass with the speed of a runaway jet and smash into the oblivion of our reality so that we wake up one day and wonder how we got here?

I wish only to live a simple life of use, much like Thoreau; to serve the good of humankind and share happiness with those around us. Today, there are no more Walden Ponds.

The best I can do is be the best person I can. To stand up and seek the truth, to teach my children to question authority and seek out answers for themselves. To preserve innocence and purity. To turn the other cheek when the situation arises, or fight fire with fire when oppression grinds us into submission or complacency. To always stand up and never back down no matter how many may think you’re wrong, as long as they believe it to be good. If they are wrong, I’ll help guide them.

I will teach my children that life is too short for hatred; that war can only bring about more war, and peace is attainable if we allow our intellect to guide us and find solutions.

I close my eyes and picture my son in his high chair eating cake by the handful. I long to preserve that memory. He knows nothing of the evils of the world, nothing of blood and oil, rich and poor, sadness and destruction. I long to keep my children from the propagandists of the world who will try to oppress them with their opinions, their will, as if they are the only ones who are right; as if one person matters more than the next. I will not be able to keep them from these things, these people, and as I pass into another year of my life, I long for simplicity to return, for tolerance to become widespread and the words of dissent to always have a place in our daily discourse as patriots. As a greater man than myself, Edward R. Murrow, once said: “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”