Peter Fountain

Month: September 2020

Life

Leaving September

Sep 30, 2020 by Pete

October begins tomorrow.

When the pandemic started 6 months ago and we were essentially locked in our homes (in NY anyway), it seemed like time was standing still. Without work and school and a social life of any kind, hours melted into days, days melted into weeks, and weeks melted into months.

Things have slowly begun to reopen, and there is some faint notion of normalcy. September brought a return to school (sort of), and more reopenings (especially the gym!).

September seemed to be the month where we’ve made the greatest move in a positive direction.

Of course we are still wearing masks, the kids are only in school 2 days per week, and we are constantly being reminded to stay away from each other.

While the months of March through August seemed to bring painfully slow changes, September seemed to bring accelerated changes.

The people guarding the doors and limiting access to the local supermarket are gone. We can go inside a restaurant and eat, if only one limited basis.

Even the traffic patterns have returned to a more normal state, with a limited version of rush hour returning and the usual oddball accidents around town.

I’m sure more problems await. Flu season is close at hand. As winter sets in, we will be driven back indoors, and cold/sickness season will certainly follow (as it does every year).

But we see small signs of normal life popping up around us, even if our real version of normal is a long way off.

Life, philosophy

Triggers

Sep 17, 2020 by Pete

It’s common to hear someone say “you made me mad” or “he did something that made me angry”.

It’s true, people do things that suck, and we get angry (or frustrated or upset or whatever). It happens. I get it.

But I think claiming someone (or something) “triggered us” to anger is to give away too much of our power.

Once we are triggered, and get angry, the other person or situation essentially owns us. They are in control. They win.

Why would we allow someone else to control us, or how we feel or act.

As hard as it is, we have the power to control our response. Of course we cannot control the feelings that come to us, we are perfectly capable of making good choices about what to do with those feelings.

Someone said something that triggers you (pisses you off). You get angry and fire back. Understandable, but not ideal.

We can make a different choice. If we allow ourselves to be triggered, we are complicit in the offense we take.

Our anger, our temper is ours. We can choose to manifest it or suppress it.

Saying that someone makes us lose our temper is garbage. So is saying we have the right or entitlement to lose our temper simply because someone triggered us.

We are better than that. We can exercise more control over ourselves than that.

It is a choice. How will you chose?

Life

On 9/11

Sep 11, 2020 #anger, #inhumanity, #loss, #pain by Pete

19 years ago today I was at work, just like lots of other people. I worked in for the US government in the Federal Building in downtown Rochester.

We had a TV in the conference room and soon people were gathered around it watching the images of the twin towers burning. We were stunned. We were scared. We were scared.

Before long it was obvious that this was no accident, that in fact we were under attack.

In the lobby of the Federal building a conversation started with the marshals, some judges, and other’s about what to do. Should they evacuate the building?

One marshal pointed out that it was possible that the attack in NY was the tip of the iceberg, and that there may be snipers waiting outside different buildings waiting for evacuees.

Maybe it was safer to stay put, shelter in place as they say nowadays.

Eventually they sent us home, telling us to move quickly to our cars and go straight home.

At home I sat with my (then) wife and 5 month old daughter, eyes glued to the TV, staring in disbelief.

Who the hell is Al Queda? Who the hell is Osama Bin Laden? What’s their beef with the US, or New York, or a bunch of white collar people in office buildings?

But my most vivid memory is of the people on TV in other parts of the world celebrating. There were videos of people marching in a street yelling death to America and rejoicing about news of the attacks.

That has stuck with me. People on the other side of the world celebrating the death of people they’ve never met, never seen, and likely know nothing about.

Celebrating death. Celebrating suffering. Celebrating pain.

I’m sure they had their reasons. I’m well aware that many people around the world don’t think much of the US. We’ve all see people burning flags and protesting and all of that.

But to celebrate the death of citizens was (and still is) impossible to process.

None of the people killed on 9/11 were solders. They weren’t on military bases, they weren’t charging into battle against an enemy.

They were regular people, dropping their kids at school, grabbing their Starbucks, and heading into work.

They were people. Humans.

Some of the celebrants were interviewed. Predictably they found the whole thing perfectly fine, killing any American was justifiable, in their minds.

I’m sure they see America as a bully, a tyrant, an occupying force. On some level their anger is understandable.

But their joy at the death of innocent people is not understandable. It’s savage. It’s cruel. It’s inhuman.

Unfortunately those images are more prominent in my memory than many other’s. The hate. The rage. The lack of humanity. The savage cruelty of people celebrating the death of people.