In preparation for this weekend’s news stories and where-were-you? blog posts and photo galleries — which will be a somber affair, and rightly so — I want you to gather up your family members and watch this video together. It’s two minutes of people laughing, at various ages, from babies to elderly folks. Watch it. Enjoy it.

How does it affect you? My guess is you can’t watch it without smiling or laughing yourself. Unless you’re some sort of marble-hearted psychopath, it’s impossible to see the joy of these random, anonymous people and not share in it.

Today, tomorrow, and Sunday we’ll be thinking and talking about the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Not because we have a desire to relive that day or those emotions, but because it was an event that we all shared. As horrible as it was — and maybe because it was so horrible — we experienced in community. There were no walls. We were all New Yorkers, all Americans, regardless of our differences. We grieved together. We got angry together. We helped each other, together. On this 10th anniversary of the attacks, we will remember together.

That’s a vital part of 9/11 that I want my kids to understand — how significant the togetherness we all felt, along with the outrage and uncertainty. The way we instantly identified with those families and victims. The way we shared their pain and empathized with their emotion. I want my kids to see that we can take that empathy on a grand scale and insert it into our daily lives, on an individual-by-individual basis. To grieve with those who are grieving, to cry with those who cry, to rejoice with those who rejoice, to laugh with those who laugh.

I hope we can identify with injustice and heartache as easily as we can identify with laughter. It’s what makes us human, and the more we can do it, the better humans we become.

Also, I just wanted you to see the video, because it makes me happy.

[HT: Kottke]