Posted by Kristi on September 28, 2001, at 18:30:33
In reply to Re: Terror's emotional effects, posted by Noa on September 28, 2001, at 16:15:07
Noa...
Very well said!That last paragraph especially... has me thinking. How to comprehend that number. Well, that'll keep me busy tonight.
Kristi
> When I read Sar's post, it was hard for me to know how to read it, but I erred on the side of it being her honest description of what was going on for her emotionally, not necessarily a statement of philosophy. I think it is important to make that distinction. As Dinah points out, this is so enormous and so distressing for so many people, that we all deal with it in different ways.
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> I think for many of us, the turn off switch needs to kick in sometimes--to disconnect us from what could be overwhelming floods of fear and sadness and rage, etc. I think it is also why when a thread like this is started, it doesn't take long for the conversation to shift from our own individual emotional reactions to focusing on what the country should do about the attacks. It is just too hard to sit with the feelings for most of us, don't you think?
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> Sometimes I think it is very hard for people to feel connected to an event. The visual images were surreal, weren't they? For me, it was only after the media focused on some personal stories that it started to seem more real to me. Also, for some reason, the image of the towers on fire and collapsing seemed unreal to me, but when I saw the clouds of ash and dust billowing down the narrow streets and people running to escape them, I think I connected to the other (non-visual) sensory aspects of that (thought of being surrounded by this monstrous cloud, not being able to breathe, etc.) and that made it more real to me, although I continue to grapple with absorbing that this horrible horrible thing really did happen. I think our brains aren't very open to absorbing this kind of input--for me, anyway, I think it probably challenges everything my brain knows about my world and how I go along in my life assuming I will generally be safe.
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> ALso, I think the sheer numbers are too big to comprehend. I mean how often is it that you and I actually deal with six or seven thousand of anything? If we spend that much in dollars, it is usually a safe bet to say we don't deal in cash, let alone single dollar bills. I have never amassed any collection of six or seven thousand items. How many is six or seven thousand people? I guess I would need someone to give me an analogy of some kind of gathering place where I could actually visualize that many people. If there are about 200 people on a full airplane, that would be like 30 to 35 full airplanes of people. Even that doesn't help me imagine how many people. My brain just resists it. Or perhaps it would help to visualize the size of a neighborhood that would house that many people and their families, left behind. If someone could draw such an analogy and I could compare it to a neighborhood I am familiar with, maybe then the concept of the number of people killed would be something I could understand.
poster:Kristi
thread:11763
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010927/msgs/11871.html