I've kinda taken a long time to sit down and write this entry; I've been trying to get my head wrapped around the many, many things that I'm feeling.
The events of this week have left me stunned and disoriented and incredibly sad. The sheer ferocity of the attacks on New York and Washington, and the horrible toll taken in lives of innocent people are just overwhelming to me. And, of course, I feel helpless. I'm so far removed from New York City right now, and even if I were there, I'm not sure what sort of help I could offer. The whole thing just leaves me impossibly sad. And angry. I want desperately to strike back at the people responsible, but what can I do? At whom do I strike? Especially when we still don't know for sure who did it, or why? And the worst part of all, or maybe the best, is that I understand why these people feel the need to strike back at the U.S. Our policy of unquestioningly supporting Israel in the Middle East has made many, many people angry - people who've grown up in or been forced to live in the horrible conditions of the refugee camps of Palestine and hate us for having taken the side of the people they see as their oppressors. But nothing excuses the actions of the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks.
I've been so heartened by the stories of people helping each other that are coming out of New York City - the way the city has rallied and opened its heart to itself - something that many people are suprised at, but that I think I could have predicted had the question ever arisen. I've mentioned before what a competitive rat hole New York can be, but I've also seen its people being very kind to each other and to strangers in its midst.
I was thinking all day Tuesday of the shot of lower Manhattan that I had managed to get a while back - Way back, in fact, in June, I think; when I'd been flying back from Pittsburgh. I'd been so proud of myself for having managed to snag such a great shot of Manhattan from the sky, given the fact that I was using a middle of the road digital camera and my total lack of skill. And of course, at the center of the photograph stands the twin towers of the World Trade Center. I love that shot... and I'm not sure how long it will take before I can wrap my head around the idea that the WTC is no longer there, and that so many people were inside when it collapsed.
And it leaves me wondering exactly how well the terrorists' plans went? Did they stupidly expect that the planes would knock the towers over just from the impact, or were they sophisticated enough to know that all the jet fuel would create a fire so hot it would literally melt the steel supports of the buildings? The fact that those buildings were so well designed and didn't collapse until those infernos had a chance to melt the steel is probably what saved so many lives. Instead of 50,000 deaths, we're looking at around 5,000... which is still an horrific number in the truest sense of the word.
Who would ever have thought that we could count ourselves lucky with "just" 5,000 deaths? Well, the fact of the matter is that I don't think we're all that lucky. Our lives have been changed forever in one day. We all have a new way of reckoning time: Before and After.
Have our lives really changed, though? I mean, really? We're an odd people, we Americans. Our sense of entitlement is so strong, I wonder if there is anything that can knock it out of us, and make us recognize that we're part of a greater whole. I mean, on the day after this horrible tragedy in New York, I was walking home from the theater and saw two guys about to get into a fight over some miniscule stupid shit that should only be important to a drunk guy with anger management issues, but that rears its ugly head in our society all the time.
And seeing those two guys - supposedly members of a civilized society - ready to go after each other because they'd threatened each others' manhood or something... it suddenly made me realize that all the people I know who are good and decent and liberal and angry at our government for having policies like the unquestioning support of Israel, who like me may be sickened by these attacks but understand their motivation, those people are all full of shit. We have the government we have, and it has the policies it has, because we allow it. All of us. All of us wrapped up in our personal existences, dismissive of others because they don't believe what we believe, always needing to be right. Later on in the trip, I also saw three drunken young guys trashing a shopping cart, beers in hand. The level of anger and coarseness these kids displayed actually frightened me... I had the feeling that it wouldn't take very much for them to turn their rage on me, and it just made me even more sad.
I have such a hard time putting words to what I'm feeling... it's such a problem for me. Getting this stuff down is torturous for me on a good day.
What a week. I remember walking home from the theater that night and hearing a cricket in a tree and thinking that even the sound of a cricket in a tree is never going to sound the same to me again... not after hearing those little beepers that the firefighters in New York were wearing in the aftermath of the collaspe. Those things that make that strange little chirping noise so they could find each other in the smoke and debris during an emergency? I heard a cricket in a tree on Spruce Street as I walked home and all I could hear was that little chirping emergency beacon. How long, I wonder, will it take for that association to go away?
'Cuz it will, you know. We are who we are, and we're built the way we're built, and even the most horrific stuff eventually goes away in the long run... maybe not its power, but its.... immediacy? There'll come a time when I hear crickets and don't think of this disaster, but I just wonder how long it will be.
What a world, man. What a world.
The events of this week have left me stunned and disoriented and incredibly sad. The sheer ferocity of the attacks on New York and Washington, and the horrible toll taken in lives of innocent people are just overwhelming to me. And, of course, I feel helpless. I'm so far removed from New York City right now, and even if I were there, I'm not sure what sort of help I could offer. The whole thing just leaves me impossibly sad. And angry. I want desperately to strike back at the people responsible, but what can I do? At whom do I strike? Especially when we still don't know for sure who did it, or why? And the worst part of all, or maybe the best, is that I understand why these people feel the need to strike back at the U.S. Our policy of unquestioningly supporting Israel in the Middle East has made many, many people angry - people who've grown up in or been forced to live in the horrible conditions of the refugee camps of Palestine and hate us for having taken the side of the people they see as their oppressors. But nothing excuses the actions of the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks.
I've been so heartened by the stories of people helping each other that are coming out of New York City - the way the city has rallied and opened its heart to itself - something that many people are suprised at, but that I think I could have predicted had the question ever arisen. I've mentioned before what a competitive rat hole New York can be, but I've also seen its people being very kind to each other and to strangers in its midst.
I was thinking all day Tuesday of the shot of lower Manhattan that I had managed to get a while back - Way back, in fact, in June, I think; when I'd been flying back from Pittsburgh. I'd been so proud of myself for having managed to snag such a great shot of Manhattan from the sky, given the fact that I was using a middle of the road digital camera and my total lack of skill. And of course, at the center of the photograph stands the twin towers of the World Trade Center. I love that shot... and I'm not sure how long it will take before I can wrap my head around the idea that the WTC is no longer there, and that so many people were inside when it collapsed.And it leaves me wondering exactly how well the terrorists' plans went? Did they stupidly expect that the planes would knock the towers over just from the impact, or were they sophisticated enough to know that all the jet fuel would create a fire so hot it would literally melt the steel supports of the buildings? The fact that those buildings were so well designed and didn't collapse until those infernos had a chance to melt the steel is probably what saved so many lives. Instead of 50,000 deaths, we're looking at around 5,000... which is still an horrific number in the truest sense of the word.
Who would ever have thought that we could count ourselves lucky with "just" 5,000 deaths? Well, the fact of the matter is that I don't think we're all that lucky. Our lives have been changed forever in one day. We all have a new way of reckoning time: Before and After.
Have our lives really changed, though? I mean, really? We're an odd people, we Americans. Our sense of entitlement is so strong, I wonder if there is anything that can knock it out of us, and make us recognize that we're part of a greater whole. I mean, on the day after this horrible tragedy in New York, I was walking home from the theater and saw two guys about to get into a fight over some miniscule stupid shit that should only be important to a drunk guy with anger management issues, but that rears its ugly head in our society all the time.
And seeing those two guys - supposedly members of a civilized society - ready to go after each other because they'd threatened each others' manhood or something... it suddenly made me realize that all the people I know who are good and decent and liberal and angry at our government for having policies like the unquestioning support of Israel, who like me may be sickened by these attacks but understand their motivation, those people are all full of shit. We have the government we have, and it has the policies it has, because we allow it. All of us. All of us wrapped up in our personal existences, dismissive of others because they don't believe what we believe, always needing to be right. Later on in the trip, I also saw three drunken young guys trashing a shopping cart, beers in hand. The level of anger and coarseness these kids displayed actually frightened me... I had the feeling that it wouldn't take very much for them to turn their rage on me, and it just made me even more sad.
I have such a hard time putting words to what I'm feeling... it's such a problem for me. Getting this stuff down is torturous for me on a good day.
What a week. I remember walking home from the theater that night and hearing a cricket in a tree and thinking that even the sound of a cricket in a tree is never going to sound the same to me again... not after hearing those little beepers that the firefighters in New York were wearing in the aftermath of the collaspe. Those things that make that strange little chirping noise so they could find each other in the smoke and debris during an emergency? I heard a cricket in a tree on Spruce Street as I walked home and all I could hear was that little chirping emergency beacon. How long, I wonder, will it take for that association to go away?
'Cuz it will, you know. We are who we are, and we're built the way we're built, and even the most horrific stuff eventually goes away in the long run... maybe not its power, but its.... immediacy? There'll come a time when I hear crickets and don't think of this disaster, but I just wonder how long it will be.
What a world, man. What a world.
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