First-Year Reacts to Past Week

To the Editors:

I used to be an idealist. What was just yesterday morning is now once upon a time. In the aftermath, it takes grit even to acknowledge that the horrors of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were not left to me by a fleeting, unforgivable dream. The inner conflicting dogmas of firm belief versus fastidiousness to practicality upon which I have placed my previously most firmly held convictions are failures and any post-modern biases I harbored towards apathy and indifference have at long last been forsaken. I am left seeing as if for the first time.
Laughing and crying are different today: more somber and clairvoyant. Since it began, I have had my first actualized encounter with matters of peace and war and my first real appreciation of my friends and family. I now realize that the most sacred quality a historical peculiarity that eludes many Americans but which I have enjoyed impossibly as a birthright is safety. I lived in a relative bliss characterized by an implicit faith in the goodness of our humanity. Now I can no longer look in the mirror and reflect with confidence that love will overcome evil.
My only indication that justice can begin the healing of misdeeds comes, as it always has, from the kindness of others. While democracy is not the right word for it, the simple resolve to purge even the most personal wounds without resorting to violence must define our nation’s constitution as a people. Resisting this itch is the only pact save fear that demonstrates our common humanistic consideration; this must be remembered even when one is tempted to label the application of thoughtful retribution as treachery.
My ability to overcome grief and to continue on with civility and compassion is derived from those whom I love. Tears brought on by remembering the deaths of thousands, any one of which could have been me, bring only an indelible numbness. Through all this chaos, however, just sensing the presence of my family is cathartic. This is something I must always cherish.
It seems paradoxical to note just such a collection of thoughts about what so many in my generation are experiencing simultaneously and for the first time. The fact remains that although I am repeating commonly represented sentiments it does not follow that mine are cliché nor does it entail that my credibility is diminished. Out of respect for the novelty of these thoughts to me it is therefore natural that my experiences be related here. Regardless, it is difficult to discern whether I am inscribing this essay or it is describing me.
From this bright nightmare life again will awaken. With it, the urgency with which these words are now written will have begun to recede and, while never again defining my reality, I may again at least sense safety. By the end of my days, I can only hope to have played witness to a life of grasping peace from terror.
History seems littered with catastrophes both personal and national. I have now witnessed one of them. And so I must decide.

–Peter Prows
College first-year