One Year Later... How have you changed?

[ernest828]

My Fellow Forum Goers, The last year has been like nothing none of us ever imagined. How have you changed spiritually, musically, physically, etc...? Peace, Ernest

[S_Gould]

Well, since I don't hold myself in any way responsible for what happened, I felt no need to change. I also felt no need to overreact and change the way I felt about or treated people from any other cultural/religious background. I didn't let hysteria grab ahold of me either - I took my first plane flight less than 2 weeks after 9/11/01. In fact, I think the only thing that changed for me was the way I view some of my friends and acquaintences. After hearing some of the (ignorant & bigoted) things that came out of people (who I THOUGHT I knew), I have lost some respect for them, and for myself for ever respecting them. Hmmm, I guess it did change me in some small way. Scott

[Jotown]

Mostly I am much more suspicious of my government and it's agencies, and it's agenda, and it's motivations than I was a year ago. Of course it was horrendous and those responsible were and are truly evil, but I am so angry about how our president, and his party has spun and used this thing to put forward his (or maybe his dad's) right wing agenda. That people are so stupid and clueless about what is really going on in the world, and that Dubya is still getting 70% approval ratings while the economy is swirling around in the toilet has made me lose a lot of faith in Americas intelligence, as well as it's intelligence agencies.

[WFTurner]

Bought a gun and became more proud of my ignorant clueless Americanism and started liking King George.

[LeiDeLi]

I became more "ignorant and clueless" also, by reading the Quran and studying the history of the Middle East. Long live King Geaorge ! :)

[Hippie]

My heart goes out to the families that lost people in the attacks but I hope it didn't *change* us; That is exactly what the terrorists want (and some gov't officials and companies that have their own agenda) Last night, I saw a World Trade Center documentary on the History channel and they kept harping on about, 'the year that changed America'- BS! -If we consider ourselves a strong country, we shouldn't let a handful of religious freaks change anything. Matt

[Wewus432]

That was some scary shit. I was in the local music store(Reliable Music) when I found out what had happened. I had gone downtown to do an early piano tuning and Reliable is right there, so I popped in to look at guitars and stuff. The time is about 10:20 and everyone is gathered around a tv set. So of course I say "what's going on?" and that was the end of looking at guitars. After about 15 minutes the manager of the store actually came out and made everybody go back to work. How can you work after something like that? I don't know what to say. That was the most horrendous thing I've ever witnessed and I don't know if, or how I'll ever get over it.

[Iaian]

One change that I saw that I hope lasts is the sense of unity among Americans. For a little while it really didn't matter what race you were or what your social standing was. All that mattered is that we stood together. I know its a terrible thing to say but mabye some good came out of it all. I just hope it sticks. Iaian

[Kendrix]

[quote]Originally posted by Iaian: [b]One change that I saw that I hope lasts is the sense of unity among Americans. For a little while it really didn't matter what race you were or what your social standing was. All that mattered is that we stood together. I know its a terrible thing to say but mabye some good came out of it all. I just hope it sticks. Iaian[/b][/quote]Ditto i found that to be really uplifting in a strange way - tho its sad that it takes a disaster to evoke this behavior. I grew up watching the towers get built from my home town (at the time) on LI. There are dozens of people from there that were directly affected. At the time the first plane hit I was on the phone with someone who was downtown. So i felt like I was there in a sense. At first I just felt such a loss, not just for the people, but over the fact that such a signature ediface was gone from MY CITY. This most historic skyline was destroyed and the physical aspect of it really got my blood curdling. Eventually, it was interesting that I processed the event till I no longer felt the loss of the buildings to be important at all. It was kind of like a realization of the positioning of the spiritual over the physical. Life goes on. - Yeah the city is forever altered- but, despite my initial reaction, this really isnt important at all. The fact that people in the city/country/world reacted positively as described above trumped this big time. Getting to that point took some time. So, I guess Im somewhat less attached to the physical and more attuned to the "spiritual" as a result.

[ernest828]

I don`t want this to come out wrong but not seeing the towers everyday really plays with me more than the fact that almost 3000 people perished. I was fortunate enough not to have known any of those souls. The complete lack of respect for life shown that day by a handful of individuals greatly affected me and I think about it everyday. I was not a "bad" person before but I feel a great responsibility now to address that day in song for people. I recently composed 10 songs of which I believe 6 of them were inspired by 9/11. They are the best songs I ever wrote and now that I`m in pre production, I can not wait to get out there and share these songs with my city. Ernest

[Tedster]

[quote]Originally posted by Iaian: [b]One change that I saw that I hope lasts is the sense of unity among Americans. For a little while it really didn't matter what race you were or what your social standing was. All that mattered is that we stood together. I know its a terrible thing to say but mabye some good came out of it all. I just hope it sticks. Iaian[/b][/quote]That is always what those involved in a tragedy look for, and it's a very valid thing...looking for the proverbial Phoenix to rise from the ashes. Like you say, hopefully it'll stick. I was watching the History Channel's documentary on the recovery project that had gone on at the WTC site, and they were showing some of the sad bits of everyday life that had been recovered...IDs, pieces of the airplanes, things like that. And I had this feeling very similar to watching Robert Ballard's first views of the wreck of the Titanic, laying there 10,000 feet below the surface of the Atlantic. The feeling of anger over the attack was displaced, somehow separate, and the focus was on the feeling of great human tragedy. BTW...I didn't know 'til just now, but Sept. 11th has been designated "Patriot Day".

[Synthguy]

I've been praying a little more for the world, that people get some sense and use their noodles more, think independently, get rowdy when they find they're being used by their spiritual leaders and demand the truth. There's so much bad information and lack of thought in the world, and the people really do suffer horribly when their leaders make bad decisions. We get so bent out of shape over some of the things that happen in our lives and government here, and truly America needs a good overhaul in every area, but with power blocks dominating and a media virtually controlled by one party and philosophy I'm not holding my breath for any intelligent changes. However our "disasters" are so much smaller than those in the rest of the world. Israel suffers devastating attacks almost every day, and it's really too bad it takes a cataclysm at home like 9-11 to wake us up to the threats people are facing there, in Africa, the Philipines, Indonesia, India and just about everywhere. I do wonder if we'll ever wake up tho. Just listening to people here justify the stupidity and utter evil in the Islamic jihad is appaling. Something as simple as realizing that all Islam has to do is condemn it, declare those who wage war against America, Israel, the Philipines, Indonesia, Sudanese or wherever is now heretical, and they're bound for hell. That would be so simple, it would be consistent with the Qur'an (not the later writings of course) and it would force everyone back to talking about their problems. And letting people of other faiths live their own lives. The rest of the world dropped that stupidity for the most part. Even India, with the odd concepts in their writings in which war was just another aspect of life to be celebrated and necessary to further the work of karma, they've grown out of most of that and are trying to enter the new millenium with the rest of us. It's about time the Islamic world dropped their Dark Ages mindset and grew up too. Letting Jews go to [i]their own Temple Mount[/i] shouldn't be too much to ask. Unless those Palestinians in control are nothing but thugs and bigots. So anyway, mostly I pray for brain power for the human race, and proper leaders. Praying for peace is pretty useless if you don't start with the head, because it's the head that works the trigger finger. ;)

[MattC]

- Well, the (my) band that would make it big is history... - My studio has FINALLY been conceived... - I came to a realization: too many people in the world worry about too much that is truly trivial, to the ignorance of those things that really matter. - I'm still alive (that's a good development, right?) - We're all still alive So I guess in light of those last two, this really has been a good year, right? Because in the end, what do we really have if not life... and the groove!