Ramblings

[bubosquared]

So today marks the 20th aniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. What this means for me is that I've been alternatively blubbering and feeling really old whenever I watch the news, which is usually three to four times a day, sigh.

I have a very vivid memory of watching the wall fall, live on the news. It wasn't the first time I became aware that

Comments

[dantesvendetta]

I remember the fall of the Berlin Wall, even though I was about 6/7. I remember feeling sad for all the people who had lived apart in the same city.

Weird that it's been 20 years! God I feel old.

[bubosquared]

Weird that it's been 20 years! God I feel old.

Seriously, pull up a chair and tell me about it. TWENTY YEARS! O_O Where's my cane? Where am I? Who are you? Who took my trousers? You damn kids, GET OFF MY LAWN!

[aunt_zelda]

*sighs* My mom can remember watching the Moon Landing. Me? I remember watching 9/11 on TV over and over and over and over ... *shudders*

[bubosquared]

You know, I sometimes wonder how much that sort of thing influences how one sees the world. Like, if I'd been born just a few years later, my first memory of international events would probably have been of the (first) Gulf War, which would have been a decidedly less happy memory, and I wonder if I'd have been less optimistic about people's ability to change the world in that case.

(I mean, I probably would've been, with my parents being who they are, but still. *ponders*)

[aunt_zelda]

I have a teacher who thinks that an entire generation has some kind of PTSD (or, well, a mental reaction to disaster footage) because of the countless reels of 9/11 footage that they just. Kept. Showing. Over, and over, and over again. I'm inclined to believe him. I don't know how it was elsewhere in the world, but for several weeks after 9/11 it seemed like NOTHING ELSE was going on but those planes crashing into the Twin Towers. Over, and over, and over again. In retrospect, I see that it contributed to the hype, hysteria, and public support of the 'war on terrorism. For a lot of people, it was like the attacks WERE happening again and again, for real, because of all the footage being replayed over and over again.
Why couldn't I have been born later, and remembered the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony as the first big TV thing in my life? That'dve been COOL. I envy the little kids who got that ...

which would have been a decidedly less happy memory, and I wonder if I'd have been less optimistic about people's ability to change the

[bubosquared]

I do think culture/nationality comes into the effect especially 9/11 would hacve had, as well. (And wow, awkwardly phrased sentence is awkwardly phrased.) I remember going through about a week of rather intense "aftershock" after 9/11, but then I started healing and "getting over it", so to speak.

But I'm European, and we are, to put it cynically, more "used" to terrorism (and to war on our home soil, for that matter), whereas a lot of the US reaction had an element of "But but this isn't supposed to happen here!" to it, which I suspect is going to make the shock a lot more severe.

(... I'm trambling, sorry.)