We'Ll_Never_Come_Out_the_Same

We’ll Never Come out the Same Trauma is never felt the same way, nor conceived in the same fashion by anyone. All people experience the pains of our cruel world at some point, but sometimes the shock of the world being turned on its head is like the shock a fish feels when dunked into cold water. In the 9-11 attack of 2001, the people Charles Bernstein wrote about may not have even lost no one from the demolition of the World Trade Centers, but still felt something deep down, whether they knew it right away or not. While some people try to avoid grief entirely, later when the reality of the event sets in, many cannot help but become wrecked emotionally. Despite this, when the pains of the ordeal set in, we finally find how ugly wounds can really be. No matter what, when people have experienced such hurt, they never come out of it the same. When a horrific event first takes place, sometimes it can be in such blatant contrast with the convenient rhythm of our lives that we cannot even grasp what has actually occurred. Similar to how the story, It’s 8:23 in New York, shows how emotionally demanding events can be so out of context that the only way people are able to deal with them is to shut them out entirely. When you can’t even wrap your mind around the events of the present, them being inconceivable makes them all the more impossible to dwell on. Bernstein wrote the narrator in It’s 8:23 in New York, with an interesting way of coping, and that is to deny the events entirely. The eeriness of the whole situation puts his strange emotional reaction in complete contrast to the story Today is the Next Day of the Rest of your Life which shows a person who is really emotionally wrecked, as opposed to no emotions at all. Accordingly, the audience has no way to react but to become absorbed in the twisted sadness of the whole story. While some people shut out their emotions, and others feel the need to express everything, there is no right or wrong way to process human pain. Often, long after we’ve experienced a jarring pain, our minds flood with imaginings, crowding our reality and burning us on the inside. Almost nothing can scare a human being more than what they have fabricated themselves. This is what the reader is meant to experience while reading Today is the Next Day of the Rest of Your Life, and the vagueness is quite upsetting, but very realistic to the event. Not only this, but even more distress is felt when you wake up for the second time and realize yesterday was not a dream. The story shows that shock and often anguish follows this because we know what has happened is real, but we don’t know how real. The event is not yet suggesting we take action like in Aftershock, because at this time the victims still need time to recover. The pain has only singed them at this point, but not enough to inspire anyone to make a change. When we first experience a traumatic event as brutal as the 9-11 attacks, we may think we have a clear picture of what happened but our memories of the event will always be too clouded with grief to be real. Complete realization of the actual traumatic occurrence takes time and reflection, but when we have a strong grasp of our emotions, often we feel the need for action. Long after the initial realization in Today is the Next Day of the Rest of Your Life, the narrator begins to form a clear picture—the real picture. The picture is frightening, but sometimes we have no choice but to look reality in the face. In “Aftershock,” it is obvious that the narrator took thisact of terrorism personally, and therefore the reader does too. When the narrator says that “we bomb” it is just as the Twin Towers were bombed, so we feel just as destroyed as they have been. When someone is hurt, they often experience a human need to lash out at what hurt them. Bernstein has overcome the passivism from It’s 8:23 in New York, and has formed a much better reality than in Today is the Next Day of the Rest of Your Life, but now the time has come to retaliate. The human way of coping is complicated, but when it comes to an even like the 9-11 attacks, nothing is ridiculous. No matter how humans decide to cope with horrible issues, Bernstein sums it all up so well. Some people see trauma as unwanted emotional turbulence, but anyone with a heart would soon come to terms with how irrevocably loathsome this event was. Some cannot imagine or conceive, while others feel like they themselves were blown up. Despite the diversity between humans as a whole, everyone can connect when they see other people’s pain the exact way they see their own.