Timestamped
Nine Eleven A Global Touchstone
9/11 is timestamped into our collective memory; it is a global touchstone. Our hearts broke on that day but not our spirit. My view of the world imploded.
Timestamps delineate the before from the after in a jagged vs a precise manner. Imagine dropping a mirror on a tile floor; the glass breaks, shards splinter and the damage is irreparable. Or, think about the fate of “Humpty Dumpty”. These events shake us to our very core; some people disassemble and suffer from PTSD—others retreat from the world with anomie. Depression is widespread while others mask their fear with cynicism. It is struggled to stay grounded emotionally in the aftermath of a catastrophic events.
It seems that the hurt is triggered an amplified especially when we recall the assassinations of JFK, MLK, Robert Kennedy and Malcolm X. The Tiananmen Square protest and massacre; the epidemic of AIDS, the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the rise and defeat of the Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong, COVID, George Floyds torture/murder and the January 6 assault on the United States Capital by homegrown terrorist.
These timestamped events capsize our values and beliefs and fracture our view of the future. The event is embodied, we never forget. I will never forget.
My memory of September 11 is so vivid it is hard to believe that it occurred 20 years ago. It is timestamped.
At 8:46AM EST my workday which had just begun came to an abrupt stop. I said to my engineer trained fiancé the unimaginable—"that was not an accident; the building is going to collapse.” He said, “no way”. A second plane and the south tower is struck. The flaming buildings buckles and collapse. Chaos ensues as well dressed professionals covered in soot and ash resemble zombies fleeing to safety while our first responders stood their ground.
What is that? Is that a bird? No. People falling—jumping-- from the disintegrating structure.
The horror is compounded: a third plane hits the Pentagon at 9:37AM EST and a fourth plane crashes in Shanksville, Pennsylvania because the passengers fought back.
During the day and into the night, I saw the planes hit the building again and again, I watched the towers fall over and over and I cried as people made their way through the rubble. I witnessed a new era a new reality: the United States with all its advanced weaponry, intellect, wealth, and power is vulnerable to attack.
Our innocence crushed and our arrogance dismissed when the planes hit.
The first attack on United States soil. Impossible? No. But the possibility of such an event was outside the imagination of everyday individuals. It was, however, on the radar of our intelligence officials and FBI counterterrorism analysts Cynthia Storer, Ali Soufan, and Jack O’Neill. They were among a handful of agents tracking the increased frequency and escalation of Osama bin Laden’s threats against the World Trade Center [WTC]. Why? These professionals timestamp was February 26, 1993, 12:17PM EST the day that a Ryder rental truck filled with 1300 pounds of urea nitrate exploded in the North Tower garage and they had been on the lookout since that date.
Timestamps are a lens into the future for those who care to look. You will find this concept introduced in the final chapter of my book homing in on this key and unique characteristic of Woke Leaders: they are sentinels for and of change. They are attuned and attentive to timestamps because they mark a shift, an opening, a possibility for a new way of being: transformation .
We mourn the almost 2997 souls lost who we came to know from their profiles, photographs, and the memories of shared by grieving friends and relatives. And I, like you, cried with them.
Irretrievable losses, new possibilities: time stamped into our collective conscience. We are not the same. We can appreciate the now, keep our eyes open and act with compassion, humanity, and humility.
What are the time stamps that characterize your lived experience.