![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
What I was thinking
Sep. 15th, 2001 02:15 pmI started to write this on Wednesday night, but I never posted it. A combination of exhaustion and later fear enveloped me. Exhaustion from keeping things going through all that has happened and fear because my reactions seem very different than those around me. I miss having Marci around, another person who lives in a similar world, where horrible things happen all the time. (For those who don’t know what on earth I’m talking about, ask me what I spent most of time in University researching). After talking w/ Kat last night I feel better. Now I’m going to call my former roomie. Below is Wednesday night. Go with peace and wisdom in your hearts.
*********************************************
I don’t really know what to say as I emerge from my self-imposed exile. Compared to everyone else, my reactions seem almost muted. My only non-muted moments today were aimed against what a colleague on a Listserv called “So many commentators, so little content.” If there is nothing to report, frankly I believe in not reporting. My other flash came because I felt that I was going to scream if I heard one more person utter that dreadful phrase “the unthinkable has happened.”
Let me digress into academia for a moment. For YEARS, since the end of the cold war, both defense experts as wells as members of academia (esp. in the social sciences) have been saying that terrorism was pretty much the next big threat. This threat was listed above the danger of nuclear (or any other type of) weapons from either the former USSR and/or other nations. Last November at the meetings of the American Anthropological Association the first (and most memorable) session I attended was entitled “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” The participants in this session were a unique bunch, because it was basically a meeting of people from the Monterrey Institute (a defense think tank) and eminent anthropologists whose studies focus on war, destruction and the like. It was one of the most interesting, provocative sessions I attended, and in the end one of the main points ended up being that weapons of mass destruction are no longer the threat, terrorists are the threat. What types of weapons used are negotiable the terrorist themselves are the threat. These men and women had been thinking about the supposedly unthinkable for years, along with many others.
Beyond the above examples I think my reactions have been muted in comparison to others for many reasons, the tops one of which comes under the heading of “Too Much War.” These past years, where I have been buried (often head high) in the war and human rights issues have taught me how to keep going and stay very calm when dealing with horrific situations. Freaking out is allowed, but you have to find a balance between freak out and control, otherwise you will go nuts. Too much of either is bad. I have also learned that life goes on. When it doesn’t there is a problem.
*********************************************
I don’t really know what to say as I emerge from my self-imposed exile. Compared to everyone else, my reactions seem almost muted. My only non-muted moments today were aimed against what a colleague on a Listserv called “So many commentators, so little content.” If there is nothing to report, frankly I believe in not reporting. My other flash came because I felt that I was going to scream if I heard one more person utter that dreadful phrase “the unthinkable has happened.”
Let me digress into academia for a moment. For YEARS, since the end of the cold war, both defense experts as wells as members of academia (esp. in the social sciences) have been saying that terrorism was pretty much the next big threat. This threat was listed above the danger of nuclear (or any other type of) weapons from either the former USSR and/or other nations. Last November at the meetings of the American Anthropological Association the first (and most memorable) session I attended was entitled “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” The participants in this session were a unique bunch, because it was basically a meeting of people from the Monterrey Institute (a defense think tank) and eminent anthropologists whose studies focus on war, destruction and the like. It was one of the most interesting, provocative sessions I attended, and in the end one of the main points ended up being that weapons of mass destruction are no longer the threat, terrorists are the threat. What types of weapons used are negotiable the terrorist themselves are the threat. These men and women had been thinking about the supposedly unthinkable for years, along with many others.
Beyond the above examples I think my reactions have been muted in comparison to others for many reasons, the tops one of which comes under the heading of “Too Much War.” These past years, where I have been buried (often head high) in the war and human rights issues have taught me how to keep going and stay very calm when dealing with horrific situations. Freaking out is allowed, but you have to find a balance between freak out and control, otherwise you will go nuts. Too much of either is bad. I have also learned that life goes on. When it doesn’t there is a problem.
