My aunt lived in Tornado Alley (Kansas) for 10 or 15 years and about the same amount of time in Florida.
When the subject of tornadoes or hurricanes comes up, she’s always said that she’d much prefer a tornado. In her words, when you’re in Florida, there’s news reports starting a few weeks earlier about the in coming hurricane. You have to hear about it non-stop for weeks and, like you said, there’s nothing you can really do about it. In Kansas, OTOH, you wake up and it’s just another normal day, then a tornado comes through and destroys the town, then it’s [the weather] back to normal.
They’re both bad, but it’s the anticipation that she hates.
She seems content in Texas now where the worst weather they seem to get is an inch of snow here and there, which isn’t really an issue for her since she grew up in Wisconsin.
The aftermath of 9-11 was a annoyance with major road closures but all and all the event was over. It seemed much of the disruption was unneeded and no real benefit to it. All 9-11 seemed to do is make life harder on everyone.
Covid 19 is still going on and our actions matter, if a first responder, a grocery store worker, or anyone alive can made a difference. It’s much more personal in that what we do matter whoever we are. Every person has a stake in the game, a person’s choices define who that person is. Act for the benefit of humanity or against in selfishness. It was the moment that left it up to us, and each person, to decide.
9/11 was a shock, horrible and tragic, and led to a lot of controversial reactions, but here in Canada, it did not have the …existential… psychological effect that it seemed to have in the US.
COVID-19 is slower and much, much larger. It has already led to changes of a speed and size I could not have imagined. And it’s only just beginning here.
ETA: Brangelina sounds like one of those countries resulting from the Balkan breakup, if the Balkans spoke Spanish…
For me, it’s been COVID-19. I’ve found that I miss speaking with people face-to-face.
I miss getting together with my friends at the sports bar, at the end of the business day, to BS back and forth as we watch sports. Because the sports bar is closed. My favorite coffee shop, whose owner I know, and who will often give me free coffee in exchange for a good chat about current affairs, is closed. I’m not speaking with people at the local courthouse, because it’s closed. I’m pretty much limited to saying “thank you” to checkout clerks at the local supermarket and attendants at gas stations. I can and do speak with friends and family on the phone, but it’s not the same as face-to-face.
This didn’t happen in the wake of 9/11. We all came together then, and were allowed to socialize in pubs, bars restaurants, and coffee shops; and we weren’t prevented from attending public gatherings. With COVID-19, we are. It’s knocked me for a bigger loop than anything I’ve experienced in my life.
9/11 itself did not knock me for a loop. What did was:
The buildings fell down
Many hours later with people stilll inside
The only reaction was blind rage and revenge
Against innocent civilians in the wrong country
At a cost of trillions
all borrowed and not paid back
With virtually no voice of protest.
And even that did not knock me for that big a loop, because it was so predictable. It was exactly, point for point, what would happen again in a repeat scenario.
I was in the US for 9/11, which was a local event that was over in minutes. I was outside for Covid, which is a global event that none of you will live long enough to see undone. Too many of the wrong people will emerge as the winners
I voted 9/11 thinking “knocking for a bigger loop” meant specifically “surprised by.” Pandemics have been around for centuries, so this one doesn’t surprise me the way NYC (of all places) could switch from a blue-sky day to a literal major war zone.
The OP then mentions a “kick to the gut.” That’s a more general reaction that could have many, perhaps overlapping causes. I’m not sure how I would have voted, had I read that first. It’s so hard to judge. For me, it’s partly about my personal situation: on 9/11 I was single, but now I have a wife and child. 90% of any “kick to the gut” right now is about them — especially the child.*
*His emotional and social wellbeing and education — a bundle of compromised experiences and opportunities that I know will pass in a few months, but that’s a pretty big chunk of his lifetime. I do recognize that many people have it much worse — and, I do notice little silver linings, such as the extra moments I’ve been privileged to spend with him recently, and how HIS resilience (sometimes) is setting an example for ME.
Ask this again in 20 years, and the answers will be different.
I answered 9/11 for similar reasons. September 11, 2001 It was a perfectly normal day: get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed. The morning of the 12th was the shocker. Overnight, while we were sleeping, the world changed. The towers were gone, the only live TV we had was CNN International and all it showed was talking heads and a lot of smoke. I had to call my dad in Virginia to find out what had happened. There we were, on the other side of the International Dateline on Saipan, and trapped. No flights meant that no one was going to leave the island for a long time. We could do even less than people in the states could (donating blood was nice, but it wouldn’t help anyone in the states).
My husband is an essential worker, but my jobs are shut down now. I’m bored at home, but I am not feeling as gut-punched as 2001. It’s bad, and governments are making it worse, but I know everyone is miserable, which is far different than 9/11. There are idiots who are hoarding supplies, and some who refuse to practice smart prevention practices, but that’s not the same as knowing we’ve been attacked by people who want to destroy our nation and kill us if they can’t force us to convert.
I think the reason people are so shell-shocked now is because of what we can’t do to comfort each other during this crisis. In 2001, people rallied together. There were parades showing support for first responders, many more people went to church and had many prayer meetings. Now we have to stay home, and are hearing doom and gloom from Internet, radio, TV, and other media. We won’t know how deeply our world will be affected by this, and dread of the unknown is very hard to deal with.
Wow. For me, a decade from now, this post might encapsulate “what it was like to be alive in 2020.” I haven’t experienced anything like these episodes personally, but for some reason this just sums it up so well.
9/11 was shocking but it didn’t make me start to freak out. Covid-19 has made me start to freak out a little…
It’s quite probably that I’ll mentally place Covid-19 in the same category as AIDS (i.e., a serious disease, but not something to personally freak out about) sooner rather than later.
In terms of daily life, COVID-19 by far. 9/11 was just kind of surreal for a few weeks afterward, but daily life went on- I kept going to work, kept going out with friends, kept shopping at the grocery store, etc…
But in terms of my mental state and future, I think 9/11 was far greater. Nothing like that had ever happened, and as a 28 year old single man, I had some long thought sessions about whether or not I should join the military, or at least National Guard. With COVID-19 hitting now that I’m 47 with a family, there’s no real question about what I’m going to do. The only question is how it’s going to play out. Plus, if you were paying attention, you sort of saw this coming, so it shouldn’t have surprised anyone, except maybe in the method or degree.
9/11. I just can’t get as worked up about acts of God for some reason. 9/11 seemed like reality was broken. Like real life just became a horrible Hollywood Movie.
9/11 was the most shocking event I’ve witnessed in my lifetime, so the initial kick to the gut was much much stronger. However even though I watched the towers get hit from my bedroom window, I never felt afraid to actually go outside. After a week or so, even as as New Yorker, the initial impact was done and it was just cleanup/rescue mode. I never felt like I or my family were in danger. Whereas with COVID, I’ve barely left my apartment and haven’t seen my family since the beginning of March, and there is no end in sight. This is much more frightening.
9/11 was a total non entity in my life. At the time its impact was I got into an argument with a girl from Pennsylvania about how dumb it was to get worked up over a couple thousand dead New Yorkers since then it mainly impacts me by the incredibly stupid over reaction to it.
COVID on the other hand is terrifying and has dramatically shifted my life and that of everyone else I know. 10x more people have died from COVID then 9/11 and all of the following wars and that will double or triple this year. I’m sure it will impact my life for years to come.
