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...and I was just thinking about that and talking with friends about that a few days ago.
A little background - on 9/11/01, I left for work at about 9:30am. Sweetie and I had just moved into our Brooklyn apartment on 9/01/01. When I got to the subway on the corner, I could see the WTC burning. A bunch of people were standing around and nobody really knew what had happened. I turned around and rushed back home to turn on the TV. In the three blocks that it took me to get home, these three thoughts went through my mind:
1. It was Islamic terrorists.
2. Our government (and the Bush Crime Family - I've been watching them since Silverado) will be found complicit.
3. This changes everything.
Really, that's how my brain said it to myself, "this changes everything." When that became part of the lexicon, I was disappointed that I didn't hold a copyright on that phrase, because it's been used to death. This changes everything, and yet it didn't.
Personally? Everything in my life is pretty much exactly the same as it was 4 years and 11 months ago. I'm in the same apartment with the same Sweetie going to the same job for the same money. Oh, we have different clothes and hairdos, and we've done some very creative things in that time, but the last 5 years have represented the LEAST amount of change on a personal level that I've ever experienced. It's strange, really, a form of stasis. And, I believe that TERROR is the cause. Because it's not just me. It's not just me and Sweetie. Lots of people seem to be living from day to day in a way that is different from "before everything changed." People, at least people that I know, seem to be less willing to make big commitments or life changes than before. I'm not the only one who's noticed this, others have made comments along those lines. We have a lot of fun around here, but we don't really change.
Understand, I'm not complaining. I consider myself to be VERY lucky. And I've told myself that more since 9/11/01 than all the rest of my life put together. If I had been the same person living in New Orleans rather than New York (which would not have been out of the question, I considered living there) I would probably be saying something very different! I'm lucky, and when something does blow up somewhere, I feel lucky to be alive.
On a larger scale, I do believe that everything HAS changed, and here's how I think it's changed. In the before time, it was assumed that somehow we are all mostly in this together. In the changed times, it is assumed that we will not all make it through. Does that make sense? Pandora's Box has been opened, and the killing has begun in earnest. When the killing is over, there will probably be about 2-3 billion people left on the planet. Maybe fewer. It picks up a little steam each month, as a new front is opened. I don't really know anyone who disagrees with that.
In the before time, people would react in horror to an incident of large-scale killing, and people would agree that it was bad. In the now time, we tend to recoil not in horror, but in hopes of ignorance. I just don't want to know is a more common reaction than oh my god!
Or something.
...That's all I got for now...
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