By Donald M. Taylor
Almost six months following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, I walked into my class of two hundred sophomore students, carrying a large empty box. Essays were due today and my brown cardboard box was the receptacle for their creative endeavors.
As students milled about filling the box, I reflected on the mood of the class when we met the day after 9-11. Emotions ranged from rage to depression, but one important theme to emerge on that day was that everyday behaviour seemed trivial and meaningless against the backdrop of such a catastrophe. In the face of life in North America changing forever, students felt almost ashamed that they might care about taking notes at some stupid class or getting a haircut or studying for some trivial mid-term exam. On that day my students and I wanted to be with our loved ones, the people that mattered. On that day we sought actions that might address the terrorism directly such as donating blood at the local Red Cross, or contributing to hastily organized relief efforts. These seemed to be the only meaningful behaviours in life, and everything else seemed trivial and meaningless by comparison.
But here, six months later, my students showed all the predictable emotions of stress and relief as they handed in their essays that most had committed much time and energy to. We were back my students and I. We were back to our usual routine, for the most part, worrying about deadlines and confronting self-evaluation. We even made choosing a movie or what to have for lunch an important part of our day. How can this be? Surely 9-11 jolted us into the reality that we need to redirect our lives to the things that matter, that have meaning, and not revert to a life of trivial pursuit. But here we all were, trapped into business as usual.
This realization was at first depressing, but as the last of the students filed by with their essays it occurred to me that maybe I had got it all wrong. Maybe, just maybe, business as usual was a wonderful affirmation that our lives are indeed meaningful.
Terrorism’s Target
Terrorism is an action carried out by those who feel they lack the military and political power to engage their enemy by conventional means. By targeting civilians and non-military symbolic targets, the aim is to impact an audience. That is, the action is intended to create widespread fear, and disrupt the normal lives, of an entire population. And that is precisely what the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon accomplished. Those involved directly or indirectly with the consequences of the attack pursued their mission with meaning and energy. From Ground Zero relief personnel to airport security staffs, work took on new meaning. But for most of us, the focus was on living with new unidentified fears and a sense of guilt about how we manage to get so worked up about trivial aspects of our everyday pursuits. The terrorists had done their job.
Rethinking Priorities
When an event shatters our normal routines we inevitably become aware of our own vulnerability. While 9-11 led to a widespread threat to normal life, other dramatic events such as the death of a loved one, breakup in a relationship, or sudden job loss, can have the same effect, on the person s most directly implicated in the particular event. Among the myriad effects such dramatic events have, we begin to question our priorities in life and wonder about the meaningfulness of the tasks, obligations, and routines that fill our days. For a select few, this rather painful process leads to a complete overhaul in life’s priorities. The business person pursues a passion for music, the city person retreats to the country, and a busy executive reacquaints him or herself with their grown children and grandchildren.
But the vast majority of people confront the existential angst of life’s priorities and sooner or later drift back into their “old” routines. For me and the students who are filling my box with their essays, pre 9-11 life has been restored. At first, this realization is depressing. Surely, the existential questions raised by 9-11 would lead people to live more meaningful lives. Upon reflection, however, maybe the scene surrounding my rapidly filling cardboard box is life affirming, and it is to this realization that I now turn.
Life Affirmation Following 9-11
Why do most return to their normal life routines? Our default assumption seems to be that a return to the usual is because the person lacked insight or the courage to pursue a more meaningful life. But what if the return to the usual is because the usual was meaningful to begin with? What I am proposing is that routine behaviours analyzed in isolation may appear trivial. But if the action in question is purposive in the mind of the doer, and is linked to grander more long term goals, then maybe the action is truly meaningful. The student attending a boring class dealing with material not central to the student’s interests might be interpreted as “going through the motions.” But what if the course was a required one for entry into more advanced courses the student was genuinely interested in? The student may well tough it out because it is linked to the student’s medium and long-term career goals. Now the act of attending class and sweating over an essay is indeed meaningful.
A more cynical interpretation is that after a dramatic change in priorities following a shocking event we drift back slowly to old habits and routines. Such an interpretation has more credence when the event is one that touches an individual as with the unexpected death of a loved one. In this case the individual is alone in terms of the disruption to their normal life. Everyone else around them is engaged in business as usual. But when an event impacts a large number of people, the forces to return to life’s previous preoccupations are less obvious.