I guess I should also address something else today as well. It took a while for me to even realize that today was in fact 9/11. It is obviously it is not a significant day here in Russia and none of the Americans here mentioned to my knowledge, so I am left to reflect on it alone. I guess the tour we did today has also put me into a more pensive mood as well.
That day, 9 years ago, was one of the defining points of my generation and I am fairly certain that I will always remember the events of that day, how and what I felt and how it changed the world around me. It’s one of the significant historical events of my own and my generation’s lifetimes and I think it is fair to say that it will stay with us just like the attack on Pearl Harbor has with our grandparent’s generation.
Earlier this year I wrote an essay for a sociology class comparing the effect of major events in my own lifetime with those in the 60s and how my reaction to them was similar or different to that of people in the 60s. I chose to use my memories of 9/11 as my significant event and treated it as a parallel to the events of the Vietnam War. I found this an apt comparison and I did quite well on that essay. What it really did was to make me reflect on my memories of 9/11 for the first time in a systematic way, and really for the first time from an adult perspective. I remember that my world view really did change on that day.
I concluded that before 9/11 I had not know much about the world beyond what had been taught to me in history class or that I had discussed with family. I was not watching cable news yet, reading news websites nor reading the newspaper. A combination of the world changing events and my own increasing maturity lead me to begin to follow the news and global affairs after this point. But I think my options and reaction to facts (no matter what anyone says facts are always subject to interpretation and tainted by opinion) will always be somewhat affected, even subconsciously, by my memories of that day.
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