“On The Pier” (taken on 9/11/01) is Creative Commons licensed by *Hiro.
July 2nd, 2001 is Mind on Fire’s birthday. The birthing process was painful, since I hand-coded the site and put much more effort into the design and scripty goodness than I do now. Here’s kind of what it looked like on July 23rd and September 17th (it doesn’t work now, but the picture in the upper left showed different pictures of victims of 9/11 on each visit). Most of the comments from that period were lost in one of my migrations to another blogging platform, unfortunately.
My first post was called ‘Sincerity.’ I think that’s been the guiding value of this blog since then.
I rarely dig into my blog archives, but I was trying to remember how I reacted to attacks of September 11th of the same year. Here’s what I wrote on that day, at 7:10am PST:
just heard about the attack on the world trade center. i feel equal parts numb and sick to my stomach. fear and anger will spread across the u.s. and the world, and many in this world are already, both openly and in secret, rejoicing. the cycle of violence will escalate, and the terrorists will have won.
i will do my best to resist the fear and the hate::
In the next morning’s post, I expand on this desire to battle fear and I outline some of my actions:
terrorism’s number one goal is to instill fear…fear leaves us paralyzed. fear closed down our airports, wall street, the federal government, and countless state and local governments, businesses, schools, and amusement parks.
if we let fear conquer us, then the terrorists have won.
…
4. i will not allow fear to dictate my actions. there is no such thing as security. death can take us in the guise of an earthquake, cancer, a drunk driver, a crazed gunman at any moment. death is one of the great certainties of life.
Fighting fear is a recurring theme in my life. As I write and remember, I’m realizing that the conquest of fear is one of my core values. I’m a coward, but I try not to be.
- This desire influences my relationships: I don’t want to limit my children’s potential because of fear of harm coming to them, I don’t want to miss out on the opportunity of meeting new people because I’m afraid of embarrassment, and I don’t want to act against my conscience because of fear of judgment
- This desire influences my view of religion: I live in a pretty bleak universe. It’s tempting to escape to the comforting security of myths of eternal life and ultimate justice.
- This desire influences my politics: I don’t want to encourage policies based on fear of immigrants, fear of people who worship Allah, false fears of government bureaucrats on death panels.
It’s good to remember how terrified I was–how scared we all were–in the aftermath of the multiple attacks of 9/11/01. It’s sobering to think of how this national fear was transformed into anger and then manipulated to serve ends and interests that had little to do with seeking justice against those who perpetrated these horrible crimes.
The war on terror isn’t fought with weapons and soldiers. It’s fought in our own hearts.
Today, I recommit to fight fear. I will not let the terrorists–the obvious ones that carry bombs, the bombastic ones on talk radio, the subtle ones that whisper uncertainty into our ears whenever we embark on new personal endeavors–I will not let them win.
9 responses so far ↓
1 G // Sep 11, 2009 at 9:29 am
beautiful. thank you for this.
2 Scot // Sep 11, 2009 at 9:36 am
I enjoyed reading your thoughts, and your conscious effort to avoid the negativitiy of hate and fear. But I have to call you out for abandoning all of that at the end.
“terrorists… bombastic ones on talk radio”
I guess all that talk about rising above the hate and fear was just that… talk. I’m no fan of those bombastic radio hosts either, but I think one of the most destructive forces in our society is the need to castigate others merely for holding a viewpoint that doesn’t agree with our own. Even to the point of equating them the terrorists who proudly killed 3000 innocent men, women and children.
Have we completely lost the ability to TOLERATE our differences, unless those differences involve skin color or sexual practice?
3 Megan // Sep 11, 2009 at 9:41 am
9/11 has an extremely powerful, personal meaning for me for reasons a little too complicated to go into in a comment. I’ve been more aware this year, for some reason, that the date was approaching, but without any organized thoughts or feelings. Yesterday I was trying to answer for myself the question ‘what has changed,’ and this post addresses what I kept returning to: a redefinition, a re-awareness perhaps, of courage.
The events and what happened after have continually challenged my own ideas about courage and fear and I find those ideas still evolving. This post, particularly in the context of your experience with the court of love, is an affirmation of what I believe and try to live (always imperfectly): courage is most achievable when it is inspired by the pursuit of truth.
4 John // Sep 11, 2009 at 10:13 am
Scot, I don’t intend to state that the three types of “terrorists” I talk about in closing are morally equivalent. The thread that ties them together is that they use fear to manipulate people, but they do so at different levels. I’m playing with the concept of “terrorist” and not abiding to the standard definition. It’s a risky rhetorical move, I realize. I guess it didn’t work with you, and that’s fine, but from comments here and on facebook, it looks like a few people understood my intent, so I think I’m ok with it.
5 John // Sep 11, 2009 at 10:22 am
Scot, one more thing: nowhere in my post do I say anything about equating terror to the political views of talk show hosts. I avidly follow several conservative commentators online and on air, but they are wonks who discuss issues fairly rationally. I am opposed to fear-mongering on both sides of the political spectrum.
That said, conservative radio and TV talk show hosts are just especially good at it these days.
6 Scot // Sep 11, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Ugh! Wrote a reply, just to lose it to an expired cookie.
John, thanks for clarifying! In the past when I’ve seen similar statements it’s usually part of an effort to villify opposing viewpoints and/or those who hold them. Obvously in stark contrast to the rest of your comments in that light! It’s good to see that’s not what you meant!
BTW, congrats on being exed. I was exed in 1990 at 18 (got my GF — now wife — pregnant), and I still view it as the single most positive point of change in my life.
7 Rainey // Sep 11, 2009 at 6:43 pm
This is meaningful to me.
We look at large events like 9/11 and talk easily about fear: who has it; who caused it; who transcends it. But how often do we think about it in our daily lives? And the truth is, catastrophic events come along 3, maybe 5 times in a whole lifetime but the ways we capitulate to it in our daily lives really limit what our lives ever become.
It’s just so easy to rationalize and evade the issues of our lives. We do it before we even realize we have. And there are so many people and forces who are ready to capitalize on it. For example, the whole basis of advertising is creating dysphoria and supplying the product to relieve it: have you got BO? No one will tell you. They’ll just reject you. Better buy Product X! Already got health insurance? Obama will give yours to some illegal alien. Stop him before the country’s socialist!
When we’re willing to face fear and act with integrity despite it, we’re freer people. That’s what the first responders did on 9/ll. That’s what John’s been doing. That’s what we all need to do in things big and things small. We just have to learn how to face the fear before the rationalization machine goes into operation.
8 FireTag // Sep 12, 2009 at 2:21 pm
As a young man I took a job in New York City as an environmental consultant in order to be near my future wife, who is a classical musician. Shortly afterword, my company moved into the 90th floor of 2 World Trade Center. I had a window office looking out kitty corner at 1 World Trade.
Many years later, now living in Washington with my wife and high-school age daughter, I was driving to my office when I heard of the attacks. When I got to a television I saw the carnage.
The famous Time magazine photo of the second strike has my old window vanishing into the fireball on the right side of the picture. I like to believe I would have been smart enough to flee the building in time. But I know I would have been still sitting there at my desk in utter horror that morning as the first plane slahed into Tower 1 right in front of me. And I, not some other victim, would have been engulfed in the fireball of the second attack.
I admit to have been afraid in the Tower. I don’t like heights, and on many days, the 90th floor was at cloud level. In a complex that large, fire alarms are frequent occurences; two or three times a week you’d see the fire trucks scramble below. You never knew what was going on, so there were times I found myself wondering about what it would be like to be trapped there. Not a pleasant thought.
The windows in the Trade Center were inset from the floors so that there was about 12 to 18 inches of open space between the edge of the floor and the glass. As much as my mind told me there was solid concrete a few inches below the floorboard, in the two or so years I worked in that office, I could never work up the courage to go to the edge of the floor and look down to see. So I’ve been afraid in the tower.
But on 9/11, there was so fear. No rage. No desire for revenge. There was empathy for the victims, and sorrow dor what was coming — and the many more victims there were going to be because we hadn’t been smart enough or caring enough, or just plain good enough to save a world without violence.
But there were no thoughts on my part that denying that there was something real to fear would keep the terrorists from “winning”. Terrorism isn’t about how the victims feel; it is about how the terrorists get to feel. They can feel the same way whether they scare you or simply kill you.
I appreciate the value that people bring in keeping us from descending into rage and hate. But when you weep over your enemies, but still know it has to be done…
9 SUNNofaB.C.Rich@aol.com // Sep 13, 2009 at 9:00 pm
September 11th 2001 I was at the flight line at Robert Gray Army Air field Ft Hood, Texas. There was anger and the desire for revenge because that was part of my job. You’ve been able to have such a cavalier attitude towards fear of attacks on the U.S. for the past 8 years in part due to the redneck from Cordelaine Idaho who always had half a can of skoal in his mouth, the mexican kid from Santa Rosa California who had nowhere to go but the army, the black guy from Levelland Texas with the coke bottle bottom glasses who fell asleep at the drop off a hat but always hit what he shot at and the 19 year old kid not even old enough to drink at the bar who I had to fly 3 missions to take his remains to the morgue because they kept finding his body parts. That’s what I remember.
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