The real world can be awfully frightening. Lately, and quite often over the last, oh, eleven years my mind tends to drift to something I like to refer to as "the building seven effect". That single moment in time in September over a decade ago, when everything as I can remember it changed. The core of all beliefs were rattled, but not in the way as most people remember this event, and "everything changing". No, unfortunately not in a "pre-nine eleven world" or a "post-nine eleven world" kind of way. You see, for me, at that moment is exactly when the blindfold, in a way of words, was removed. At that moment, the same furious analytic thought processes that mirrored internal emotions, construction and improvement was now, all of a sudden, sprung onto the real world. Long gone were the days of simply reading fiction and biographies. Narrow-line-based entertainment began to seem almost futile. More and more, nonfiction - ancient histories, real world events analyzed, conspiracy theories, our government, human origins, and moreso an assessment of WHY we do the backwards things we do took over my life. At the core of it all, is my mission to use allegorical religious texts meshed with hours upon hours of research mixed with my knack and enjoyment of creative writing to solve mankind's convoluted origin or at least determine a sound theory on it. But beyond all of that, the point here is building seven.
One small detail of one enormously impactful day that seems to be forgotten. Ho, ho, ho. Never forget.
And I haven't. We all know the story. I will not attempt to retell with any dramatic nature the occurences of September 11th, 2001. What I will remind you of, though, is the moment several hours after the attacks that building seven fell. Building seven was not struck by a plane, and it was the third largest structure in the compound of buildings. Like most people all around the world, I was glued to my television set that day. I needed a minute-to-minute analysis of what is going on. I'm a television hopper. To sit and watch one television channel is almost futile to me unless I really, really genuinely enjoy the programming. Attention deficit takes over with commercials, and I must begin to move around. Television, simply put, is a VERY basic form of obtaining knowledge. Skipping between three or four channels makes the process a bit more intellectual, I find. When I heard building seven had crumbled to the ground much like the two larger World Trade Center buildings, my mind shot to the worst possible scenarios. The attacks were continuing. A domestic war is imminent. The mere statement that building number seven had fallen was not enough to me. I need more information, and immediately. This is a digital/television age, after all, right? Channel hopping begun. And low and behold, with what had to be over THIRTY different channels are relaying DIFFERENT coverage of the same event ... I was hard pressed to find ANY additional information on the topic. I jumped around from channel to channel with supreme intensity, noting that certain channels that HAD mentioned the event were now no longer mentioning, and most channels never said anything about it to begin with.
For some reason, the event of building seven always brings me to the mental imagery of a flag. As if someone is waving a flag in my face, to attract my attention. In this case, I suppose it would be most fitting if the flag was a pirate's flag. Black, skull and bones. A deceiver is upon us.
And my eyes were open. The place of a skeptic is a strange place to sit. If things don't seem right, you feel compelled to research and find out why things don't seem right. This takes time and effort, often enthralled in dark subjects. This is the pure evil of humanity; how a man will act in accordance to his wish to become a god when he obtains power. How this same man will crush the bones of the innocent with little remorse to capitalize his G. How people can be motivated by such things to do the things they do. This is why I feel the distorted past of our species is so important. We don't know who we are or where we truly came from. There are permanent, anomalous structures all throughout the planet - the Great Pyramids of Giza being the most obvious example - that we cannot explain. We now stand on the cusp of God-like power with technologies - nanotechnology, genetic modification, genome sequencing amongst others, and yet still cannot learn to live with any remote similarities of peace. How can we fix the problems of tomorrow as a society, if we don't even know where we started?
I'm not talking about the origins of life, or the origins of our planet, or the origins of our sun, or the origins of our solar system, or the origin of the universe. That would be ridiculous. The questions are so broad, so generalized, and quite frankly - out of my realm. We still don't even know the origin of our own species! It is almost downright absurd that we attempt to move forward on such advanced topics without being able to explain the beginnings of development of homo sapiens as a civilized force. If you accept that the Sphinx and Pyramids were built in 2500 B.C., then I cannot help you or attempt to convince you that we have much research and knowledge acquisition to accomplish in the explanations of who we are. If you have done the research, and understand how old the Sphinx and Giza Pyramids really are ... then you are probably another skeptic, just like me.
All from that one thought of building seven, the real world comes clobbering in. Like an overstuffed closet door that was never meant to be opened. I haven't even attempted to postulate on who the deceiver is, or why the deceiver did what they did on that day, or how we were deceived. But when building seven was passed over (and further research will show you much, much more - I insist you track down BBC's report of building seven on youtube) something was fundamentally wrong. I could just feel it.
At the end of it all, however, I can be thankful that today is Sunday. My Eagles are horrible, sitting with four wins going into week seventeen. Philadelphia looks onward to draft position, a new coach, and a new sense of hope. I look forward to watching Mike Vick play in midnight green for what will more than likely be the last time. People in Denver will wonder how Peyton Manning will fair leading their team in the playoffs. People in New England will wonder if Tom Brady can lead his offense back after an utterly dismal performance against the wretched Jacksonville Jaguars of all teams, last week. All across the country, people will wonder about the intricate details of their city's team, coaches, and players. Sport and football will provide escapism today from the real world. Football will shelter many skeptics from their own thoughts today, and that is a beautiful thing. And even though I'll be forced to endure more commercials than any other television watching experience, I'll get to watch a joyous, endearing, and brutal game unfold all across America, and forget about the things that really matter - like when building seven hit the ground, and no-one seemed to notice.
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