I think one reason I feel that 911 is a sublime experience is the way I experienced it. That day I was without TV completely and so the only contact I had with the event was by listening all day to the radio. I heard everything, people shouting threats at the "towelheads" and others trying to keep some calm. Then I wandered out of my apartment to see my friend, Sean. Sean is from Karachi, in Pakistan. He knew a little bit about Bin Laden.
He had two other friends hanging out with him on the porch and we talked about the attacks. I don't know why I didn't ask to see a TV. I think by that point the event existed so fully in my imagination that seeing the real thing seemed almost too much. So we sat on the porch and talked about it. I've never expressed hatred towards anyone before--okay, maybe that's not right.. I've never said I wanted to kill someone before--until then. I was talking about what a huge shitkicking Afghanistan was going to get and I could feel my blood pumping faster. But it felt good to say. I can't believe some of the things I said, but in that moment I was completely angry and terrified. I wanted to fight and briefly, and I mean extremely briefly, considered joining the military.
There remains something mysterious and bigger-than-this world about 911. I admit to a fascination with the image of the planes flying into the building. Susan Sontag said something about the beauty of that scene, and she got absolutely flayed for that. But it's undeniable there is something too that. It does carry that feeling of the sublime. I associate the sublime with a religious concept. I grew up believing in God and even praying most nights, but that kind of went away by the time I hit high school. But there are still moments where I am awed by a feeling that there is something bigger in the world, more beautiful and also more terrifying than I can comprehend. I experienced this perception a lot while travelling around Eastern Canada, and particularly the tiny village next to the Atlantic, Darling Lake. The ocean was so immense, the beach went for miles of beautiful clear sand, and there was no one around. The hills rose above the water, jutting up and down while long grass blew constantly. There was an overwhelming feeling of silence at Darling Lake, a deep silence in the world behind all our daily thoughts and activities.
For me, 911 feels uncanny also. It is so unfathomable, but yet so symbolically rich. With all the power we have as a nation, there seems an increasing level of insecurity. 911 doesn't make sense but yet, like a dream I guess, it completely resonates on the subconscious level. Everyone fears flying at least on some level, right?
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Marc’s sublime
I remember vividly the morning I saw the trade center towers burning. I won’t tell the story, but it was sublime, surreal, scary, unspeakable and unsignifiable, and perfectly ordinary all at once. Life is so totally bizarre. I just wrote a post for my blog about looking at the moon early in the morning today and I realize that the experience struck me as being sublime for a moment.
I don’t know if I believe the sublime is much different from any other sensation/thought/feeling, though. It seems like the sheer fact of our existence is itself sublime, which is an idea that goes back to God, as you mentioned. Compared to the fact that we are, that there is anything at all, versus nothing, compared to this nothing seems sublime. You know, I think language and concepts and the ”rational” human mind are very much like a dream. We live in a fantasy, but one which we must take utterly seriously. What is “sublime” but a word? (“What’s in a word?”)
When I think like this I tend to turn around and deconstruct my own writing, which can be dangerous because I lose my motivation to take school seriously then.
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