I have not seen much posted about 9/11 here. Has anyone seen anything interesting or moving? Is anyone doing anything with church, candlight vigils or things of that nature?

On a bigger note, How is your life different since 9/11? Has it changed you permanently, or is your life back to "normal"?

I would say on a day to day basis, my life is much as it was before, but my thinking is a little different. I think I am much more in tune to "threats" or percieved threats. Like when there was that blackout on the East Coast, my first thought: "Terrorism, when is the other shoe going to drop?"
So now I am a little more skeptical. But I am not sure that I am fundamentally a different person.

Although I think I am a deeper person than I was for a while, but I think that has more to do with moving from one city to another(The Catalyst event). I guess I feel more alive, more along the lines of Henry David Thoreau, when he talks of "sucking the marrow out of life" and not living a life that is half dead. I attribute that in myself more to walking/being closer to God than I was and less to 9/11. But I can not completely rule 9/11 as not being part of that Catalyst Event for me, even if it may have been more subconscious. I feel like for a nubmer of years I was on Auto-Pilot moving through my life with out any evaluation of it, being a dead man walking, summed up more fully in my poem Missing Person(http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1347)

Anyway, I am rambling a little now, but I guess I am curious to how 9/11 has affected you, big or small? It just seems like we should be moved. It seems like something significant should be happening today in every city accross this great nation! But here I am at work like any other day. I don't want it be like just any other day! What do you all think? Does anyone else feel the same way?

I’m still really irritated by the “patriots” that suddenly appeared, waving and wearing flags. Around here it’s a constant, menacing distraction.

I don’t take very well the way they imply or claim outright that anyone who doesn’t act like them is committing treason.

(ADD,ADD,ADDDDD…)(grin)

I’d be embarrassed to admit that terrorists had been able to affect my patriotism.

I have good friends who are Muslims in Albania, Macedonia, Germany, and Bosnia. Because they are moderates and pro-West they are targets. When I see what the jihadis are doing to their own coreligionists as well as what they are doing to us in the West it makes me more resolved than ever to stop the jihadis in any way possible.

My Bosnian friend was with me on 9/11. We sat together and watch the news for hours. He was mortified, not only for America but for his fellow Muslims. I was not surprised at that. What did surprise me was when he said, “you cannot take this. You must strike back.” When a person who has lived through years of war advocates military action, you know the situation is serious.

Patriotism plays no part in it as far as I am concerned. It is about waking up and seeing what is happening in the world. We in the West have the ability to make the world a better place through the strength of our economy, our culture, and yes, our military. In fact I believe we have a moral obligation to do so.

I don’t want anyone to have to go through another 9/11 or other act of terrorism. Terrorism feeds on the perception that we are weak and will bend at the slightest sign of difficulty. That’s why they attacked Spain just before the election. We have to show them that this is not going to work.

9/11 made it clear that we face a choice. Either they will destroy us and many of their own or we will destroy them. We can no longer ignore this threat. It must be dealt with now. We are down to this: It’s them or us, somebody has to go. I choose them.

We ought to drop this thread if it's going to be like this. It's too much politics and not enough ADD.

In the immortal words of Alex Karas, "Mongo say talk about politics and religion bad in forums."

How's this: We see an unrecognized primitive process, operating on both sides, as the root cause of every conflict like this. And we can see and understand this because of the advantages that ADD gives us.

We see our kids even more advanced than us at this, and there is every reason to believe that there will be a time when stuff like 9/11 and Bosnia and like that don't happen.

So: ADD saves the world. There. I like that better.

I dunno. I think the people who post on this forum are fully capable of having a civilized discussion about political topics. I guess it’s up to the moderators to decide if this thread is worthwhile but I for one think it is. Even if we disagree. ESPECIALLY if we disagree. It’s nice to see that folks with ADD are diverse. We have different perspectives, interests, and opinions. What’s wrong with that? We can agree to respectfully disagree can’t we?

I have political disagreements with my mom but I still sent her a mothers day card and she still made me a birthday cake. If it’s good enough for Mom…
:D

The reality is, there are lots of other forums that welcome political debate. This isn't one of them.

How does 9-11 affect me years later? I live 3 blocks from ground zero, walk by Engine 10, nearly every day on the way to work...see the memorial that's been established...and then see the NYPD Hercules teams in the area.

Its made me sad
Its made me angry
Its made me cherish life like no other event ever has
Its made me want to do something about it
Its made me volunteer
Its made me more patriotic than I can ever remember
Its made me love more.

I would say its had some affect on me.

This has had many effects on me. The day it happened I saw the second plane hit live. I had just gotten up to go to college. My college was about an hour away,. I car pooled with 3 other women all of which are military wifes one who had also been in the military herself during desert storm. What got me most is what they went though because I saw it in person not just on TV. I had gone to the metting place for our car pool not knowing that our base was on lock down. I should have known but had never known too much about military life other than how it effected our city living next to Ft. Campbell. I live in Clarsville Tn alot of people think all of Ft. Campbell is in Ky but most of it is actually on the Tn side and its only 10-11 miles from where I live.
I sat there listening to the radio and was so upset all I could do was cry. I tried to call the girls but all phone lines were tied (another thing I should have known). I didn't want to leave til I knew for sure they weren't going to school because it was my week to drive. After a while I called my mom and told her I was too upset to go to school and I couldn't get a hold of anyone. I had asked her if she would get upset if I stayed home because attendance at my school was strict and I was going to miss a test which meant an automatic 10 points off my final test score, She was fine with it.
My b-day was on the 1st and my best friends is on the 11th. We had planned to get tattoos that day weeks before and went on and still did it. I will never forget the exact date I got my first 2 tattoos. When we were done we had several long talks. I had asked her what she thought of this being on her B-day she said she will no longer like that day because her b-day will now and forever be thought of as the day of 9/11.
The post was in casios so to speak. You could not get on post unless you lived or worked on post for about 2 months after that. They would check everything. They started checking cars weather they looked suspicious or not and they checked every inch of the car. This caused a lot of traffic and delays and people who lived on post but worked off couldn't get to work or their kids to school on time. Ft.Cambell we all knew could pose a big threat being that we are the home of the 101 air borne/ air assult division. Some don't know we are air assult also they are but they still use the old term for now out of respect for the air assult still here.
If you have seen Black Hawk Down that was mainly our men here in Ft. Campbell. This post is a BIG deal when it comes to the Army. That movie alone if you saw it in the theater be glad you didn't see it here. Everyone here and I mean EVERYONE men and women cried though the entire movie. It was so sad!
I did however not let one thing happen to me. And that is to let it make me fearfull. That after all is part of what they wanted and I was going to be too stubborn for that. I wasn't going to let it make me afraid to go visit the places effected or fly in a plane no way! I delt with some emotions though it seeing the militarys view on it and the cilivians. And I choose to listen to the military more at heart about certain things because I feel they know a heck of a lot more about what is going on than we do most the time so who are we to say they don't know what they are talking about when truth is 9 times out of 10 they know things we have no idea about.
Now being engaged to a military man 9/11 has even more meaning to me now than it did when it happened. He was able to explain some things to me I did not understand. Though he could not explain all because he has one of those jobs where he knows more than half the military even knows and cannot tell anyone what he knows including me. That bugs me sometimes but I know it could cost him his carreer to tell me those things so I just respect it and learn what I can and never question what I am not to know. Because he knows more than I will ever know about that day and because he knows more than most people in general I take his views on things into deep concideration and not just because I love him either but because I feel without knowing all the facts my oppion is not near as valaid as his. I feel the same when it comes to Iraq. He was there a year and our views were quite different when he came home to my suprise. Most cilivilans want this to end already so do the military but they know more about how necessary it is to be their and let me tell you they don't complain about near as much as the media makes it out to be. They want to get it done and get it done right no matter how long it takes they want to finish the job that was orignally started years ago. We may not uderstand why they want to but its not for us to know....................some things that we never find out are better left that way!............Anyway this is getting long so I will stop here although I could go on this topic for quite a while and still not get everything out.

Wow. Listen to us. The mechanism that makes these things happen is right there, on the tips of our tongues.

Did I mention that everyone has this mechanism, and it makes us sense very strongly that our reality is threatened?

The only problem is, everybody has this mechanism, and it made the terrorists sense very strongly that their reality is threatened.

The Iraqis sense their reality is threatened, too, although at this point I guess that's a no brainer.

People that feel that threatened do extreme things. Personally I would rather try to figure out why I felt that way first, but history is full of sad counterexamples.

I'm with Big on this one: 9/11 sure made me sad, and it’s still working.

The day it happened I didn't know till 2:00 aternoon. As we don't do T.V and hadn't turned on the radio that day either.
I had emailed a friend in charge of an Opera performance in regards to something I was very concerned about. She wrote back, "isn't this trivial in light of todays events?" I hadn't a clue.

I took the van to mechanic, my obviously normal demeanor cause them to tell me what happend and pointed me to the T.v screen.

My first thought was my son, I said through tears to him, I am so sorry, I hoped so much there wouldn't be a war during your lifetime. At that moment I felt so selfish for bringing him into this world as I thought America was going to be bombed more, soon after. My son replied, "I'm not worried mom, why are you?"
I said "good stay that way" Oh the wonder of children!!

Now it is like a bad memory or dream, that is a reality of how precarious life is. Sometimes still I get a surge of grief for all the families and friends that lost a loved one. Other times I am angry at all the currupt politicians. And I'll leave it at that.

It made me sick, and it still does.
I wish we had not escalated it.

I wish THEY had not escalated it.

Yes, of course!

I don't care to argue about it. I don't even care to debate it calmly on this group.

You are right, paulbf, this is probably not a safe topic for further conversation. There is just too much emotion in it.

Word.