When 9/11 occurred, my dad explained, people who were trapped were given two options. They could either burn to death, or jump.
When my dad said this, I cringed. I mean, how could someone make a choice like that. Both would be incredibly painful, right. Wrong.
Continuing, my dad told me that many people wanted to take control of their fate. Burning would be painful, yes, but jumping, well, you would be going so fast that you wouldn't even know when you hit the ground.
"Jumping was scary, yes, but all you had to do was close your eyes, jump, and you would just...float."
When my dad said this, I could feel tears, welling up inside my throat. I didn't understand how people could deal in a situation like this. The choice is simply impossible, and it broke my heart to know that people really were put in situations like this.
People of all ages are put to the test, always. Whether or not the choices are important, the still impact us, a lot. When we have to make decisions that really are important, they really help us grow up and wake us up. Reading this book, I realized that the world we live in is full of so many horrors and tragedies. Even kids younger than us have to learn to deal when life hands them things they don't expect. These people around the world have made that choice, and have dedicated themselves to their families and friends because they love them so much!
Sometimes, we really don't know what to do. We are face with ultimatums that are a lot of the time to hard for us to deal with. In the end, the choices we make impact everything, our friends, our family. As my dad said, some of us want to take control of our fate.
So what do you choose? To jump? Or to burn?
Wow. in class you were talking about this to me and i was a little fuzzy as to what my answer would be but now i know. Jump. i love how you ended it with "So what do you choose? To jump? Or to burn?"
ReplyDeleteThats a hard question.
ReplyDeleteMETAPHORICALLY, I would jump. Free-falling into the city I love. It would be a choice, it would be empowering, it would certainly not be waiting around in wallowing my own misery.
PRACTICALLY, I would burn. Burning may be a nasty, sad way to die, but it would maybe give life a chance. Where as if i jump the gun, and just jump out of the window, i might miss help coming... If help was coming that is.
So if i was in that position, would I chose practically or metaphorically?
-izzy
ps
your blog entry was so sosososososo great! i thought so long and hard about it, it was so so thought provoking. I love how you created such an interesting relation between your book and our world
epic blog
beautiful analysis of both the the book and our decisions personally i think i would burn just to make the second of my life last longer it might sound deep but its logical i would want to stay as long as i could no matter how painful. The taking control of you life line was really quite brilliant because that is what people do when they control is taken away from them i wont write much more because i might have to steal that idea for a future blog post ;-) keep analyzing dear
ReplyDeleteAs Izzy said, its a hard question. In life we have to sometimes make choices at last minute. Either way he would all die, but its that choice that makes everything different. I would chose to jump because I wouldn't like to die in agony. I would like to meet death with a friendly hello. Of course help would of had been possible, help is always a choice but its a matter of how long your willing to wait for help.
ReplyDeleteMolly you post was great, I love how you talk about the book, but at the same time you mention very little. Enough to get you thinking. I also love how you ended it with an open ended question. AWESOME JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i dont know if i could answer that. But if i had to choose one as an absolute must i would chose the jump. Once i hit the air it's just down from there. No pain, no feeling, just down. At least it would be painless. But how many kinds of these decisions do we have to make in out lives? Because most big decisions alter our life as we know it.
ReplyDeleteWow. That is a really hard question! I have to admit, I read all of the other comments before I could think of an answer, and even then, I took me a very long time. I feel that I would probably jump,but honestly, I cannot tell you why, for I don't know. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI'm using this as a mentor blog
ReplyDelete