Today marks 24 years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In that time, America has undergone a remarkable transformation, born of a shared trauma and grief that has never truly healed.

Many young Americans have no idea what our nation was like before 9/11. If you read our periodic Throwback Thursday columns in the Scene section, you might encounter this when some of our younger editorial staff are confronted by the filmed ghosts of an American gestalt long since faded.

Perhaps most commonly referenced internally in our newsroom is one person’s confusion at the airport scene in “Home Alone 2.”

Yes, our world really was like that.

24 years later, it seems all so far away.

Our cherished optimism is gone, and our vaunted freedom — the freedom so many of our brothers, fathers and grandfathers fought and died for — continues to slip through our collective fingers…all in the name of safety.

Governments and corporations construct a digital panopticon, in the name of safety.

Social media is rife with videos of armed soldiers patrolling the streets of American cities, in the name of safety.

Educational materials, library offerings, online platforms, historical displays and personal identities all endure salvo after salvo — again, in the name of safety.

Folks, closing ourselves off is not the lesson we should have learned.

Our world is vast, and it is dangerous — even something as simple as a fall can have life-altering consequences for many people.

We would argue that it is impossible to ever truly be safe — and that, were it even possible, our lives would not be nearly as fulfilling as they can be now.

Of course, take reasonable steps where appropriate and backed by data — seat belts come immediately to mind, among many, many other examples.

Like most things, freedom and safety must exist as a balance, in harmony with one another.

You could live in a bubble — cloistered away and isolated, and that may be the safest you could possibly be. But you will have surrendered your freedom, and you will live a sad, lonely life.

On the flip side, you could live as free as could be, with nary a thought spared for “but should I?” — but you incur dramatically more risks from such a lifestyle.

In the long years following 9/11, America, as a nation, has time and time again chosen the path of safety, and we increasingly are turning our backs, as a culture, on the very foundation of our greatness: our freedom.

This is even more striking against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, we see the current Republican administration making the same choices that past Democrat administrations have made — choices that also sought to impinge on the freedom of American citizens, right on down to seeking to remove the ability to own guns from a subset of the population.

It was wrong then, and it is wrong now.

And, throughout all of it, there is a constant thread of our shared pain.

You often see this when speaking with people who have a background informed by traumatic experiences — an unwillingness or inability to really open up, to allow the world in, and with it, all the potential to feel that pain again.

Now, that withdrawn, guarded gaze is writ large.

Make no mistake: our anger was just. Our pain was real. And vigilance must be the price of our freedom.

But that vigilance cannot be allowed to continue to be lazy — an inept fear of anyone who doesn’t match the in-group quite perfectly enough.

Of anyone who might cause a feeling of not being safe.

America has a long tradition of celebrating the outsider, the underdog. It is a lineage embedded deep within our culture — of Johnny Appleseed and Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name. Our presidental history is replete with outsider figures, from Andrew Jackson through Donald Trump.

It is a core piece of who we are. But, at the same time, it is something that, in the wake of 9/11, we are afraid of.

Much is made of 9/11 and its Day of Remembrance framing — memory is an integral part of the day to most Americans who lived through it.

This 9/11, we encourage our fellow Americans to remember that, despite it all, we are still free, and that means something critical, something inalienable.

Those who seek to restrict that freedom out of some misguided attempt at making our wilderness into a cradle serve only our adversaries — those who hate us and wish to see us diminished and afraid.

To quote George W. Bush, “Americans are asking, why do they hate us?…They hate our freedoms — our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”

This year, open up. Feel. Grieve. Be willing to be hurt again. Do something spontaneous, something that exercises your freedom.

Your life might not always feel safe. But your life must always feel free to be lived as you see fit.