Do National Tragedies Affect You?

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Do they? Do you even care? I have to admit that if something doesn't happen to me or mine, I just don't care about it.

All these people are being all sappy/sentimental over 9-11...and if they KNEW someone who died there, I can understand.

But if you live across the country and didn't lose anyone you know, why get all teary-eyed over it?

People died. Ok. People die everyday for all kinds of reasons. I don't get it.

No, not usually.

No. It actually annoyed me how much everyone kept talking about it right after it happened. Same with Columbine. I hate how tragedies are always used as an example for everything.

I am SO glad to see someone say the same thing I thought. I've been crucified about 3x today for saying I didn't care and was tired of hearing about it. Guess it's NOT just me.

Most people don't, according to my observations. I think there are a lot of posers out there trying to fit in.

I got emotional when Challenger blew up, but it was because I knew NASA was going to have a rough time from it. I was a fan. After what came out, I don't care about NASA, anymore.

People die all the time. More people die every year in car accidents than died on 9/11. But some deaths are way more interesting to the public than others. It's the catastrophe factor: big, flashy, unusual, unexpected, "oh my God, it could happen to me and there's nothing I could do about it!"

No. Only to the extent that I'd prefer that they didn't happen, but not really because of emotion just the equation in my brain that says Good>Bad on the scale of desirability.

I just wonder how long they're going to keep reading all of the names of the victims from the World Trade Center at a ceremony. I was surprised that they were still doing it after 6 years.

Good point. How about a wall, like the Vietnam memorial?

I'm not sure. Sometimes I wonder if when I made a stoplight if I wouldn't have made it if there wasn't a national tragedy, but I can't be sure so I don't know how national tragedies affect me.

My brother-in-law was supposed to be in the other building that came down that morning, but was running late for work and skipped his workout. He saw the second plane hit. He lost colleagues in the towers. We could not get in touch with him until early that evening. My father was across the street from the Pentagon, the forgotten part of the whole thing, and heard the explosion. I was at work on a Naval Base south of DC and had to be evacuated. I was supposed to be on travel that week and had initially booked the same flight out of Dulles, but on the Monday, until the trip was cancelled. A family friend piloted that flight on Monday for UAL out of Dulles, and got stuck in CA.

My point, while I did not personally lose anyone, I was more directly affected than many people. Yet, to me the whole thing was surreal and I really had no deep emotional reaction. I studied U.S. Policy in the Middle East in college and was not surprised I guess it came to that. I hate New York, being from Boston, so the city I could care less about. I go into work late 11 September each year so I can miss the "ceremonies" they do. I am so over it. Especially now that it has been used by politicians to push their corrupt agendas. Quite sickening.

More recently the VT shootings were a big deal. My neighbor in the office has a son enrolled, as well as a lot of other coworkers in my organization. That day was messed up. I felt more disgust, because I am anti-gun and felt the authorities screwed that up royally, seeing as how they had a killer on the loose and did not lock down the campus. I have to see crap associated with that every day on the road and at work and I get disgusted. I feel bad for the victims, but my reaction is all about how much this society sucks when I see a ribbon or whatever. Now, you can't watch college football without hearing about it. Blech!

I suppose I am just heartless.

I don't think everyone is *really* as emotional as they seem. They just don't want to look like a heartless jerk. Well, me-I don't really care if I look like one when it comes to things like that. It's over, it's in the past, it is now just a fact of something that happened and that is it.

Sure. Just not quite as expected.
For example, on 9/11, I just reacted
with a "what did they expect?"