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Carl Thress | Thursday, September 15, 2011
My wife and I recently shared our 9/11 memories with our 10-year-old son and talked with him about the events of that day. As we spoke, it dawned on me that he never really knew a pre-9/11 world. To him, the scenes we recalled are images he’s always known — a perennial part of his reality. Sure, such things are horrific to hear about and see, but they’ve already happened. They’re history. They no longer carry the immediacy, surprise, uncertainty and weight they did when we watched them unfold in real time.
The same could really be said of any historic event. Take D-Day, for example. I could talk to dozens of people who experienced the Normandy invasion firsthand. I could watch every documentary and every film reenactment ever made, but in the end, the best I could hope to achieve is a better appreciation of the events and the people involved. I would never be able to experience it the way they did. I wasn’t there. The context is gone.
Of course, even shared events resonate differently from one person to the next. Yes, I witnessed 9/11, but I wasn’t there in New York or Washington, D.C. I didn’t lose a loved one that day or in the wars that followed.
The fact is, no two people ever experience the same event in exactly the same manner. Even people standing side-by-side watching it happen. Everything we witness passes through our own set of internal filters. Race, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, our individual upbringing, values and personal history… they all color our perceptions and play a role in how we see the world.
Understanding these differences — and embracing them — is the first step toward building meaningful and lasting relationships in all aspects of our lives.
Stepping down from my soapbox and depositing two pennies in the jar...
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