Relative Something

If I have an itch, I have two choices: scratch it or avoid scratching it. Sometimes I scratch the itch, even though I know it will make it itch even more. As often as possible, I strive to ignore it. One adaptation I have devised is to scratch myself in a completely different location. I think it confuses my nervous system. It works to move my attention away from the original itch.

I stumbled onto some 9/11 remembrances in the days after the actual anniversary of the terrorism and now find myself being pulled back to those initial moments when I was at a loss about what was happening.

I don’t know why I didn’t get drawn into this until after 3 or 4 days had passed beyond the anniversary. I suppose the fact that we don’t turn on a television or radio contributed to my original obliviousness.

That’s not true; we do turn on the television. It’s just not for broadcast programming, so we don’t receive the messages network affiliates are delivering. I suspect the 25th anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Flight 93 was mentioned a lot in the days preceding the 11th.

I didn’t hear it. Then I noticed conversations popping up on Reddit, and that reeled me in. I came upon the 11 hours of raw video captured by documentarian Jules Naudet and watched about 3 hours of it in roughly 20-minute blocks. It’s pretty wild witnessing the shock and confusion the EMS responders were in during the early moments before anyone fully understood what was going on.

I’ve noticed that I tend to immerse myself in as much detail as I can consume about a disaster for a short time, after which I am inclined to shut down and not want to think about it again for a very long time.

That reminds me a little bit of how I feel about our Presidential elections.

.

.