Its not like I don’t find this all incredibly shocking and horrifying. Its the worst thing ever to hit this country in my lifetime. I am a person that is usually full of emotion. I shed tears for people i’ve never met in many situations… I usually consider myself over emotional in fact. But with this… I havent had any grief to speak of. People jumping from the buildings… knowing people are alive under the rubble and will die before they can be rescued… but still nothing.
I woke up tuesday morning in a motel in Denver on my way to KC from Vegas for a stay. I turned on the TV and watched the towers burning live in front of me… I watched the replay of the plane hitting the second tower. I watched live with my own eyes as the first tower collapsed on itself like an implosion. I watched the pentagon burn and learned it was another plane… I learned of the crash in PA. I hit the road back to KC and was talking to my GF on the cell when she told me the second tower was falling before her eyes. I almost didnt believe her. Eight hours later I arrived at my parents in KC… for that 9 1/2 hour drive I had been listing to the radio reports constantly.
I know the tragedy. Still I don’t cry or even get really emotional other then knowing how bad it is. I cried at the OK City Bombing… I cried while watching the Riots live in CA. For this I have felt no emotion really. A facination perhaps, a sadness for the family losses of course… a sadness for the suffering that continues for the trapped and dying. However nothing real and surfacing. Very ODD.
I don’t quite know what to make of it. Anybody else have the same thing happening to them? I keep wondering if it will be a delayed reaction and that maybe i am just in some sort of shock or something… but I really dont think so. Oppinions? [sub]sorry for the spelling and grammar, its never my strong point and dont so much care right now.[/sub]
If this isn’t what’s causing your lack of emotion, don’t stress about it. I’ve seen a lot of people basically shrug this off. Because a plane didn’t crash in their kitchen, it didn’t affect them. I’m not saying that’s how you are, just pointing out that lots of people are unfeeling. At least you’re aware that this IS a tragedy.
I’m going to quote/paraphrase an email I sent the other day in a discussion about this, if I may…
I still haven’t managed to be sad about it. I can’t manage to be sad through the shield of anger. I wish I could. I
wish to every god I don’t believe in that I could. I feel like I’m less than wholly human because I can’t. But, for all that, I can’t. I hope that, maybe, when we find out who did this and take care of them, the wall of anger will crumble and I’ll finally be able to feel like I think I should about it.
Nobody ever wants war. But sometimes it is necessary. Nobody hates war more than the soldiers who have to fight it, who know what it means for parents to be left without children and vice-versa. Still, there are things
worth fighting for. I don’t generally believe vengeance is one of them; however, I do believe that, unless we find and take care of (which, in this case, almost certainly equates to killing) the people who planned and executed this, they will continue to do it. Stopping this most definitely is worth fighting for, even if it means war.
I’ve never served in the armed forces. I’ve never really desired to, I’ve never really felt the need to. In fact, I’m just about as scared of going into battle as it’s possible for a person to be. Yet, even I am trying to decide whether to enlist or not. That’s how important I think this is. After after we do as much as we can to find the people who did this* and make sure something like this will never happen again, THEN will be the time to mourn. Until then, strap it on, we’ve got work to do.
[sub]*Note I didn’t say bring them to justice. There can never be justice for this.[/sub]
People respond differently to massive stress. You probably could feel grief for someone who died horribly, or was badly wounded. Some ONE. But a thousand deaths are beyond your understanding, in any emotionally real sense. It isn’t at all hard to understand that your conscious mind is not willing to crunch the numbers, and serve up the emotional results. It would hurt too much, and you know it at some level, so your emotions have shut themselves out of it.
Some have turned to unreasoned rage, and seek a target, any target to despise, or destroy. For some fear has overwhelmed them, and they sit cowering in their homes, and will not venture out. I have not been out of my house since I returned from work on Tuesday. I feel paralyzed with grief, and distraught over what I see coming in the days ahead. Cold calculation is the process going on under all the emotional expressions. I fear that America will become a nation of terrorists. I fear that the world will be locked into a cycle of murder and revenge, and whether one is truly a participant or a victim, or a bystander will no longer matter. Thousands have died, and I cannot count them. But millions are now at risk, and I cannot even conceive of their suffering.
And I don’t want to. I reject the pain. I shut down.
But the reality returns and I must be real along with it. Tomorrow I go back to work, and deal with the world face to face. I have not asked anyone about my Muslim coworkers who did not come to work on Tuesday evening. I will face a world divided by hatred, where there was love and comfort, only days ago.
Tris
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” ~ Mohandas Gandhi ~
Yeah, I’m still numb about this whole affair. There have been a few moments when I’ve wished I could cry over the loss of so many people’s lives, the tragedy to their loved ones and the whole human angle of this, but mostly I am numb about it.
Yesterday I first saw the cleanup of the towers on CNN and I felt really pissed for about 10 minutes.
Tuesday afternoon I felt afraid for my Islamic friends here in America. Most of them are refugees from Iraq and are the kindest people I have ever met. The thought of a few misguided ‘patriots’ beating them for looking arabic and speaking with heavy accents frightened me enough to call each one and make sure they were OK, tell them to be careful.
I’ve been plenty emotional about it. What I haven’t experienced is that surge of patriotic pride that everyone else here seems to be feeling. In all honesty I’ve never been a patriotic person to begin with - not that I’m actively unpatriotic, just that I’ve never felt an emotional connection to my nationality. I see the way that rallying round the flag is helping most Americans to cope with this tragedy, and I think that’s great. I envy them for it, in fact. I’m just not able to do it myself.