How 9/11 Changed My Life

Cutter's Log - Stardate 1102.30.50
Current Song - Love Is (Herb Alpert)

Current event thoughts, from the abnormal brain:

Like most Americans, I remember where I was when I heard the news of the attacks on 9/11/01.

Technically, the planes hit during my freshman Humanities block. While I was in my English class part of it, the plans hit, but the class didn't know about it at the time. When we moved to our World History part of the block, Mr. Walton already had the radio on ABC News. There I was, three seats from the first row in Room 225.

Mr. Walton had the radio play all class, and thus the normal curriculum was put on hold. The same thing for Mr. Brown's health class the next period. During that class, an announcement was made that our Auditorium would be open for showing of news coverage until a certain time.

I didn't have any stunned looks on my face. My first reaction to hearing that the attacks were of a terrorist nature was a simple "whoa." I didn't cry, wave a flag, or anything like that. My thought process was: now the US is going to find the guys responsible, and have something similar to the Nuremberg Trials. A war may happen, too.

When I made my way to the auditorium, I noticed others were also going down. I wasn't doing well in health class, or next period's Spanish class also. The news reports kind of made it sound like the prelude to the Spanish-American War. Okay, we're going to have another Spanish-American War, but with the country that did this.

To those who have read all of this so far, it may seem as if I have no soul. I'm simply recalling my thoughts of the day. The reason I didn't get sad or anything was because it didn't effect Cody Cutter personally. So after sitting through all of the reactions, I began to wonder for a minute why my reactions were not the same as those persons on television.

I think my reactions were missing because I didn't want to feel weak at the moment. I wanted to keep my head up and move on to justice. Sure, I acknowledged the horrors and the losses, but I didn't want that to change my life. I didn't want any outside force to change my life.

When we saw the video glimpse of a man with a turban and long beard (at the news reports in the Auditorium), "Is that the guy that did it?" was heard. No, I'm not going to let that guy throw me off-balance.

While everyone else was thrown off-balance with the news, I clung on to my axis and didn't move.

I wanted to remain strong, and still be able to think "oh my goodness" a little bit. With the news of Osama Bin Laden's death, and seeing the throngs of crowds everywhere, I began to think back at my inital reaction to 9/11. I didn't feel a thing then, and I didn't feel a thing on Sunday night.

But as the recent news events went on, it made me wonder about who I was and why I am who I am.

Since I didn't have a reaction to 9/11, my mindset from that Tuesday morning on remained a pre-9/11 mindset. My current mindset is still pre-9/11. I was wondering why all these people were acting the way they were. I began to become more curious about why people think and act the way they do. At first I thought this was a growing-up process, but the more I think about it perhaps 9/11 made me think more psychologically about people.

Because I had no reaction to 9/11, people looked at me real differently (moreso than usual). Here I am, looking from the outside into the post-9/11 mindset that is around all of you.

A crime? With this mental "condition" of mine, am I guilty?