On 9/11- What Makes Us Us
Image: m.nydailynews.com Tunnel to Towers Run/David Handschuh
What Makes Us Us
What do you do in a burning building?
It was a normal day at work, the hum of the office set at a familiar rhythm- muttering voices, ringing telephones phones, and shuffling papers- all ended by a sudden explosion that shakes the building.
That old familiar hum is replaced instantly by smoke, confusion, shock, and fear.
The panic switch in your mind screams, “you have to get out.” Then you see an airplane crash into the building next to you.
What do you do when you’re on the 18th floor and realize there’s no 15th floor?
It seems the only three reactions are to run, jump, or collapse.
But there is a fourth option: you can stop and help the person next to you who has collapsed, who is worse off than yourself.
Imagine you have fallen, incoherent and inert, and a person rushing by stops and consoles you. You pick up your phone and tell your loved one you arne’t coming home but that a person had miraculously stopped to show you care. It makes a difference to all the people in that building, their families, and America as a whole who can see the balm of humanity in a moment of destruction and despair.
Your survival instincts make you human but the good you do for others makes you you.
As Americans, we stop to be good.
This good makes us us.
People may do ugly things in an attempt to make you ugly,
but their actions only create a circumstance-
that burning building is only a mirror- it can reflect the base instincts in us all,
but also the deepest threads of humanity that band us together.
The stories of the good deeds in those burning buildings were defining to me as an American, shaping my understanding of who we are at the core of our identity-
There is not goodness in greatness, but greatness in goodness.
Years later while I was driving down the highway, a figure caught my eye: a man in a yellow fire suit waving an American flag back and forth, slowly, thoughtfully in figure eights.
He must have been burning hot in that suit and covered helmet and shields in the oppressive September heat, but I knew he had been at his station since that morning and he wouldn’t retire until that night because his brothers and sisters had fallen answering the call to protect others at any cost.
They stood by and when the first and second wave of their fellow fighters didn’t return from the burning building- they too rushed in willing to sacrifice themselves in the chance that they could save a single life.
In the study of political science, I learned that in most parts of the world acts of patriotism are compulsory, you wear these colors, march this many steps, and wave the flag this exact way. You are compelled to action.
Let us remember that the actions of patriotism are only meaningful to the extent that they are an expression of choice.
That firefighter wasn’t told to dress, to stand, or wave the flag- he did it to honor the good of the people who had gone before him- their courage, resolve, and sacrifice.
The good you do of your own volition makes you you-
What do you do when the building that used to hold thousands of us is reduced to a pile of smoldering rubble?
The place of their last stance- and ultimately their tomb?
We must seek the lessons from the human experience that transpired so quickly
We must wrestle with the existential questions that thousands of Americans faced in a single moment of peril to be renewed, reborn, and re-dedicated to our goodness.
The turmoil of life is sure to strike, different people at different angles
When you find yourself in a burning building, opt for the fourth option-
look for the people who have fallen, who cannot stand on their own feet, and serve them.
Being good to each other is our inheritance, the tradition that makes us great.
It’s what makes us us.
And if we stand united in this identity these words will ring eternally true:
You can destroy the tallest buildings in our nation-
But you cannot destroy the Spirit of America.
