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#24 | Sunday, September 16th 2001
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I was half asleep when I first heard about it. I didn't know the extent of what was going on. If I had known, I wouldn't have fallen back asleep.
I finally put attention to it when my dad came in and woke me up with, "blah blah blah, twin towers, blah blah, terrorists, blah, pentagon, blah blah, we can't find your sister." I then sat up in my bed, looked at my dad with utter horror, and paid attention.
I had no idea.
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Becky | 19 | Colorado
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#17 | Sunday, September 16th 2001
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I am not going to write about my reaction when I heard the news, because it wasn't much of one. I never have feelings of revenge, because what's done is done. And the only action that would concern me is making sure that the source of a negative event is cancelled, to prevent them in the future. Only if they're intolerable, which this obviously was, because I don't want people dying, even though, honestly, I was glad that something happened. The mundane inertia to change and strict obedience of media advertisements was the alternative to killing us all. Maybe not physically, but surely most people are already dead inside from it all. It doesn't matter to me if they are breathing or not. I'll demonstrate this.
A lot of people decided that we should have a war now. Former Christian exemplars, who would claim to live by the ethics of "if someone slaps you, turn the other cheek," were now unlike their former selves. The bible didn't do their inner maniac any good, now they are foaming at their mouths, screaming on top of their lungs "kill all arabians!" This is not to speak for all, but there are more than a few people like the ones I'm talking about. So, we have ourselves prejudism.
Now, imagine, a war. In Saudi Arabia, say, there are plenty old men who actually stick to the ethics. They have shed tears over this, and prayed with their hearts that America would get through this well. What will happen to them in case of war? Well, the very people they prayed for will massively bomb them resulting in much higher casualties of innocents than have already been lost. This will only add on to unnecessary deaths. However, it will quench the fire of hatred in the hearts of those insane moral exemplars.
Another thing. There are many Arabian-Americans living in the states. Their families could have been here for a hundred years or more. They are already being descriminated against. I have already heard of store employees stating "if a damn arab shows up at the store, I will not help him with anything." In case of a war, as you can imagine, this hatred will only increase. Most, if not all, arabian americans will lose their jobs. They will be ostracized. They will be dealt violently with. They might be even killed. They might be ordered or urged to leave the US, however, no one would let an Arabian on an airplane, or even a boat. Of course, these people would still be americans, however for them the flag will not wave at that point. Great, huh?
Another thing, people keep saying that they wanted their lives to go on as typically as they have before. Every day was typical, you pull the lever, push the button. You come home and watch television commercials. You are told what to buy, you are given options (on tv) of how to live. Creativity and true potential are drained out of the window. Reciting one's typical every-day feelings over a common omnipresent crisis such "boyfriend or girlfriend break-up" put into rhymes is considered "art." People can't even draw stick figures correctly.
What's wrong with that, you may ask? Well, give me a modern pyramid. Or a modern cathedral. Even a modern house that is built not with straight planks of wood but with artistic carving of some sort. Give me anything that's built today not to just serve its function (badly, I might add,) but to give some kind of an artistic and unique contribution to the world. It's not like searching for a needle in a hay stack, but searching for a needle in 100 hay stacks. By the time you're done, you might not even be sure what is a needle anymore.
People no longer throw their pacifiers away. They always cling to them, throughout their lives. "Go to school, (so that your mom and dad don't have to worry about you breaking the house while they are at work,) get good grades, (so that you can impress idiots with empty letters,) go to college, (to keep down the unemployment of people between 18 and 22, and to get the chance to meet your supposed "loved one" whom you will half likely divorce or cheat on,) go to work, (it is easy to watch ants if all of them do the same thing,) get a loan, (pay three times as much and never save up money to do anything you could actually want,) keep working, (forget what life is about and adapt this newfangled notion that the media and your "peers" shove down your brain,) watch soap operas, (get amused by cliches because due to lack of creative minds nothing more interesting is actually televised,) and eventually die. " Any questions?
When we are all slugs crawling at the same speed, none of us will foresee the future and do anything. Eliminating odd events is not a good thing, people.
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Anton | 19 | Connecticut
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#8 | Saturday, September 15th 2001
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Uncharacteristically, I'd gone to bed early the night this happened, and as such didn't become aware of it until my clock radio woke me up the next morning.
I'd just recently read a Tom Clancy book where something similar happens, so as the news washed over me, I lay there thinking I was dreaming. It was a little too much of a coincidence to stand. I didn't truly start to comprehend what had happened until I'd heard it on the news, read about it in my morning's email, and seen it on TV. I remember the sick feeling I experienced, which makes me wonder about those actually involved as well as their family and friends.
At 8am when I started work, the offical death toll (as reported by ABC radio) was one. The rest of the day is a blurry recollection of CNN broadcasts, subdued coworkers and warped ideas looking for reasoning behind it.
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Stephen | 19 | Australia
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