Archive for category: Ideas

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I woke up to the conversation on the radio. In my bleary state, I heard the voices say two planes had crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City. I was instantly awake and across the apartment to turn on the TV. The scenes were horrific. Straight out a disaster flick starring Bruce Willis. Moments later, the South Tower collapsed. I quickly showered and dressed for my day. Before I left my apartment for the Southwest Missouri State University campus, the North Tower Collapsed.

I canceled everything for the day and was glued to the TVs on campus and in apartments with friends. Silence and disbelief filled every space.

I sat with friends at their apartment in the afternoon and watched as Dan Rather aired a video for the first time showing people jumping from the buildings prior to their collapse.

I witnessed the wreckage of Flight 93, which passengers forced down in a field in Pennsylvania. Later, It was determined the plane’s likely final target was in Washington DC.

I observed the crumbled side of the Pentagon, where Flight 77 crashed into the building.

I heard the phone calls made by loved ones on the four planes the crashed that day. All sending one last message of love.

For the following year, there were cars everywhere sporting the American flag, Toby Keith and Alan Jackson played on repeat on country stations, and the U.S. collectively mourned the 2,996 people who died on that day in the towers and crashed flights. We were united in our grief and patriotism.

In a matter of minutes, we all lived in a different world. One that grew to include Homeland Security, full-body scans, no-fly lists, and a whole new meaning to the numbers 9 and 11.

In March of 2020, another major event struck the world – the Coronavirus.

All of the college classes I taught went online. Employees and students were sent home to help stop the spread.

Social distancing. Lessons on handwashing. Teams of sewers making masks out of every scrap of fabric they could find.

Zoom became the place to meet for class, meetings, and happy hour. Some of the world made a shift to baking bread at home, wearing PJs or yoga pants for everything, and drive-thru grocery pick-up. Alcohol sales skyrocketed.

Again, the world changed quickly and will be forever different. Finding the “new normal” was a common topic of conversation. Some accepted this reality, others chose to deny it.

Rather than coming together as we did nearly 20 years earlier when the towers fell, we split into groups. Maskers and anti-maskers and eventually vaxxers and anti-vaxxers. People who listened to the experts and believed what science was learning and people who didn’t. Conspiracy theories and misinformation spread faster than the virus thanks to social media.

The turning point we are facing now is more than a virus. More than masking, vaccinations, and the changing way we move and work in the world. We no longer agree on reality. We live in different news bubbles, worlds driven by whatever we chose to take as fact even if it’s really a falsehood. Lives where we get to deny reality because it makes us feel better, even if that denial kills others.

The turning point we face now is the division in our society. It’s an internal threat that can’t be addressed by invading another country. It has to start within each of us. We are our own worst enemies now. We are the hijackers, the terrorists in our nation. We are also the healers, the uniters if we so choose to be.

The question then is “Which do you choose?”