Shattered Glass, American Promise

The world stood still twice in my lifetime.

The world came to a screeching halt twice in my lifetime.

The first time was September 11, 2001.

That day was the first ever unplanned national ground stop for all flights. US and Canadian airspace was closed. It felt like the entire world was standing still.

The days following were days of shock, stillness, and holding your loved ones tight. Unprecedented, immediate help and volunteering. I remember how quickly everything was coordinated. People just showed up, brought what was needed, and helped, getting supplies and help to those who needed it urgently. Everyone telling their story of where they were when the towers fell.

For years later everyone would tell their story of where they were when the towers fell.

We were different in those early days. We were supposed to stay different.

But we didn’t.

The second time was the shutdown for the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of people traveling by plane reduced by 60.2%, international air travel reduced by 75.6%, and domestic air travel reduced by 48.8% (source). CO2 emissions declined by an estimated 2.4 billion tonnes (source). The reduction in human activity and movement had a significant impact on nature. The air was clearer and cleaner. The water was clearer and cleaner. Animals returned to their natural habitats and expanded their free movement in the world.

I remember the awe I felt when I saw the images of dolphins swimming through the canals of Venice, Italy.

And humans, too, remembered something.

I thought surely we will learn our lesson now. Surely, we as humanity, will learn. We all saw the benefits of slowing down. We all saw the benefits of a slower, more creative, less productive life. We all saw a glimpse of another way of life. How everyone could band together for the common good.

Both instances we feared for our lives. Both instances people banded together to help each other more than ever. The world was ‘changed’. We were all supposed to be ‘changed.’

And yet, here we are, repeating the same mistakes. We have learned nothing.

My dad sent me this poem (see the video below of The Great Realisation by Tomos Roberts) while we were in lock down. I thought ‘exactly’. This is the moment for all of us to realize how we can live differently than the script handed to us.

But then nothing changed.

Even my dad did not heed his own advice. He went back to business as usual, taking nothing from the crisis we had all just gone through together.

We picked up the script that was handed to us, and went back to business as usual.

The thing is that the script handed to us, isn’t one that was created by leaders, communities, or by people. The script was written by corporations. The corporate model is to extract as much productivity from humans and as much consumption by humans as possible. Beyond what is reasonable. That’s why it is so easy to open credit cards and take on more and more debt. Taking on debt means you are consuming more and which requires you to keep working indefinitely to pay it off. A treadmill. (Side note: did you know the treadmill was originally invented as a torture device?)

Capitalism as we know it today is only about one hundred years old. We act as if it is the only viable system and the only system that has ever existed. But that isn’t true. I don’t know which system would be better, but I think that it is safe to say the one we have isn’t working for us. It isn’t working for the vast majority of us trapped in it, it is working for the select few who profit off of it.

And now, here we are, entering 2026. The Human Rights Watch (HRW) report about the US is bleak. The US sits on the HRW website homepage along side Iran, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, Bangladesh, and Azerbajan. Not good company to keep. There is an entire tab for ‘the Trump Administration and Human Rights’. The US has the 5th highest incarceration rate after El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda, and Turkmenistan (also not good company to keep). Government violence against citizens is increasing. Infant mortality is increasing. Maternal mortality is increasing. The US ranks 36th globally in literacy. Of the wealthiest nations in the world, the US is dead last in terms of percentage of poverty. Our poor are overwhelmingly children.

I have fewer rights and protections today than I do when I was thirteen years old in 2001. I am not an equal citizen with equal protection under the law. I cannot be certain of my safety when I go out in public. Nor can I be certain that if I call for help, that help will come and actually protect me.

I have less access to healthcare today than I do when I was thirteen years old in 2001. My body and gender necessarily mean that I cannot access the healthcare, and even if I could, it would not be at a cost that is accessible.

We all act like this is normal and reasonable. That healthcare, of course, comes from your employer, and if you are not employed then you don’t get healthcare. That homelessness is just a normal part of the system. That access to food, water, and shelter are just ‘the cost of living’. What a wild phrase. The cost of living. In order to stay alive, it costs money.

I think that is one of the most pathological, insane things I have ever heard of.

This is all a result of the system that we tacitly agree to. This is all a result of putting corporate interests in place of humanity and being human.

There is a quote, ‘those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it.’ The thing is that we don’t need to learn history in this case. We have been living it. And we don’t learn.

I turned thirteen less than a week before September 11, 2001. That was the beginning of my adulthood. I feel like my adult life has been spent trying to hold a glass together to keep it from breaking, except that its already shattered and holding it is just causing me more harm. Nonetheless, I am holding on.

It’s heart breaking to me that Tom’s poem never came true. We never did have The Great Realization as he dreamed it. We stopped. We saw another way. I allowed myself a breath of hope. And then we were clobbered. And things got much worse.

I think that is when I realized that if the world was not going to have a Societal Great Realization, then I would have to have my own.