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Baraka_Guru · 09-11-2008, 08:06 AM

It was my first day of university. They had a big-screen television set up at the central area in the main campus building. The news was showing whatever footage it could find and was putting it on loop. What grabbed my attention the most was the static headline on the bottom right of the screen: "America Under Attack." It took me a few minutes of watching shaky street-level footage of fluttering debris and panicked people to find out just what "under attack" meant. Would you believe I was a bit relieved to learn of the nature of the attack? (i.e. My imagination thought of much worse possibilities.)

I watched for several minutes before realizing that all there was to see was a loop of the catastrophe and the immediate fallout, so I went to class.

My first class was a lecture for an introductory course on literary theory and criticism. The first thing the professor did was declare that day the end of the post-modern era.

She then went on to talk about Bush and rhetoric and the nature of meaning in language. She then warned us that, throughout the course of the year, her lectures, the readings, and the tutorials would have a profound effect on us if we would only engage our minds. She warned us that we would discover that perhaps just about everything we think is true probably isn't. What we've come to believe as young adults—how we see the world, what we see as "truth"—was about to be challenged and turned on its head.

9/11 marked a turning point in my life. It was the day when I stopped believing as though truth in language and images were self-evident. It was the day I started the process of deprogramming my mind in the same mode as the post-modernists. It was the day I realized that the world isn't what it seems. It was the day I tore up my scripts.

The victims of 9/11 need not have died for naught. Their memory serves as a reminder that we are all victims in some capacity. Some of us are victims in body; others are victims in mind. To lose sight of this will only lead us to slip back into our slumber, where we dream and long for what really are fatal distractions.

Do not be distracted. For the sake of humanity, be awake.

09-11-2008, 08:06 AM	#22 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	It was my first day of university. They had a big-screen television set up at the central area in the main campus building. The news was showing whatever footage it could find and was putting it on loop. What grabbed my attention the most was the static headline on the bottom right of the screen: "America Under Attack." It took me a few minutes of watching shaky street-level footage of fluttering debris and panicked people to find out just what "under attack" meant. Would you believe I was a bit relieved to learn of the nature of the attack? (i.e. My imagination thought of much worse possibilities.) I watched for several minutes before realizing that all there was to see was a loop of the catastrophe and the immediate fallout, so I went to class. My first class was a lecture for an introductory course on literary theory and criticism. The first thing the professor did was declare that day the end of the post-modern era. She then went on to talk about Bush and rhetoric and the nature of meaning in language. She then warned us that, throughout the course of the year, her lectures, the readings, and the tutorials would have a profound effect on us if we would only engage our minds. She warned us that we would discover that perhaps just about everything we think is true probably isn't. What we've come to believe as young adults—how we see the world, what we see as "truth"—was about to be challenged and turned on its head. 9/11 marked a turning point in my life. It was the day when I stopped believing as though truth in language and images were self-evident. It was the day I started the process of deprogramming my mind in the same mode as the post-modernists. It was the day I realized that the world isn't what it seems. It was the day I tore up my scripts. The victims of 9/11 need not have died for naught. Their memory serves as a reminder that we are all victims in some capacity. Some of us are victims in body; others are victims in mind. To lose sight of this will only lead us to slip back into our slumber, where we dream and long for what really are fatal distractions. Do not be distracted. For the sake of humanity, be awake. __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot Last edited by Baraka_Guru; 09-11-2008 at 08:17 AM..