Today my local paper ran Mitch Albom’s thoughtful remembrance of 9-11.  Through Albom’s commentary, I was reminded what an important part paradox plays in each of our lives.

One person – out of nearly 7 billion – was able to mastermind the destruction of 3,000 innocent people and seduce a legion of lemmings to carry out his plan. One man can walk through this world and cause that much pain . . .

Osama bin Laden’s actions were so sweepingly devastating and life altering that we are still mourning 10 years later.  Bin Laden hangs so dark in our collective psyche that he has become the personification of evil. He was the embodiment of everything we Americans are not – and never could be.

And yet, in the end, bin Laden revealed himself to be just another broken down ego maniac trying desperately to get someone, anyone, to be the confirming reflective mirror through which he could see his self-anointed greatness.

As Albom wrote, “. . . bin Laden went from an uncatchable Satan to a pathetic desperado, making scratchy recording to bolster his relevance, seeing his efforts to convert even fellow Arabs to his dogma thwarted and rejected.

“In the end, he never again masterminded anything close to Sept. 11.  His last images were of a pampered man bunkered in a Pakistan compound, with self-serving videotapes and a large stash of pornography.”

Bin Laden was so merely human, so small and alone.  Yet this one pitable person was responsible for acts that brought such great sadness to so many other people.  How can this be?

Because bin Laden – and all of us – are paradoxically large and small, dark and light, powerful and impotent, creative and destructive, finite and infinite, all and nothing.  We slide from point to point along the spectrum of existence via the choices we make.

– Writeye