There are some days when I have to write. There are some days that are so significant that not to write would be almost a crime. And it is seldom that one has the horror to experience such a day.
“December 7, 1941 — a day that will live in infamy.”
“September 11, 2001 — a day that will live in infamy.”
Today I experienced what might very well be my generation’s Pearl Harbor. The World Trade Center no longer exists. Or as a commentator on TV said, “Po prosto, nie istnaje.” Hundreds, possibly thousands of people died. For what? I really have no idea.
I can’t explain what just happened. I was writing this, listening to Górecki’s Third Symphony and I just started sobbing. My whole body was shaking, and as I was crying I was thinking, “Am I crying or am I laughing hysterically?” I didn’t know if I was crying because of the tragic pain, or laughing because of the indescribable absurdity of the situation. I got up to close the door, and I just collapsed. I balled up in a fetal position at the door and I just wept. I really have not felt such pain or such confusion in my entire life. And I didn’t even know a single person affected by this. I don’t know anyone who died, nor do I know anyone who lost someone in this stupid day. But I just sat there, curled up, weeping, and I think I must have said ten times, “I don’t understand. I don’t get it, at all.”
I feel so heavy. I feel like every part of my body is made out of lead. I feel like someone knocked me down, and then just kept kicking me. I feel like there’s no fucking reason to live. I keep thinking, “Who wants to live in a world as ugly as this? Who wants to have anything to do with this disgusting, foul world? And what kind of a god could look down on this world and not do something — at the very least destroy it and put us all out of our misery.”
I cannot but conclude that the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
What kind of god would ever look at the shit we dole out to each other and let it all go unchecked?
Mamo, nie płacz, nie.
How can I not cry? How can we all not cry? How can those fucking Palestinians dance and laugh in the street? I swear, I saw them on the television and I really would have felt no regret (at that moment, anyway) to see someone walk out of some building with a gun and just cut them all down. Line them up and put a bullet in each of their heads, one by one. And make the parents watch as you do it to the children.
And so I am no better than those who planned and executed today’s attack.
I’ve never been so ashamed of being a human in my whole life. I’ve never been so ashamed. I’ve never felt so petty and insignificant.
And who knows if it’s over? Maybe in a few months or weeks, or even days, there’ll be some other attack.
We live on the edge, each and every one of us. We live not knowing what the very next second will bring. We live in such a fucking false sense of security. “Oh, it won’t happen to me,” said every single person in the World Trade Center just before the planes hit and destroyed their lives. We walk on a great frozen lake, and with each step we’ve no fucking clue whether or not we’ll splash through to our deaths or not. Not only that, but most of us don’t even think about it. It’s as likely to happen as an extra terrestrial walking up to us and introducing itself.
We live with blinders on. We live looking only at the single, short, insignificant, almost nonexistent moment in which we exist. Maybe Leibniz was dead on with his theory of monads. We all live in our own little universe, and we generally don’t feel anything except that which affects us personally.
Enough. I have to go to bed. I’m exhausted.