9/11 was an event of such magnitude that it altered time itself, sitting like a gigantic roadblock on the normally smooth procession from the past to the future.

I wrote the following on the 6-month anniversary of 9/11, on 3/11/02:

The six months passed since September 11 seem paradoxically both a lifetime and the blink of an eye. September 11 is the day that "America was changed forever," according to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg at Monday's six-month commemoration ceremony. There have been many perceived changes in America since then, involving geopolitics and political philosophy, mass culture and civic society, religion, ethics, semantics, and the nature of leadership. It is my contention, however, that the most profound post-9/11 change hinges upon our perception of time.

Our typical field of "time vision" is a few days: the immediate future slips steadily through the present into the recent past creating a small zone around our daily lives like a cocoon. For most adults, the intricacies of planning and executing a single day consumes the majority of our time-awareness: the particulars of work, family, personal finance, hobbies, and citizenship in a democracy not only fill our time, but add daily to a reservoir of things undone, always threatening to overrun its banks. This constant threat keeps most of our attention in the here and now.

No wonder so many of us have trouble sleeping, or even break down and abdicate all responsibility. "Time management" is based upon the very assumption that there is never enough time to attend to our responsibilities and interests - that the best we can do is to prioritize and "manage." But the more we manage, the more constricted our view, the more "tunnel" our vision.

Many observers have noticed a certain excitement, even an odd euphoria in the air accompanying the grief, outrage, and fright since 9/11. It isn't that we are ghoulish sadists just beneath our civilized exteriors; nor is it primarily the case that, as in the words of essayist Daniel Harris, "any crisis becomes a catalyst for instant togetherness ... our fierce tribal instincts reemerge with a vengeance, having been thwarted by the curse of autonomy that afflicts advanced Western cultures." Indeed, the opposite is more true: beneath the surface of our apparent autonomy, there is great community in our battle against time, our shared Herculean struggle to meet schedules and responsibilities to family, self, and society. There is even a communal sense of virtue in our acceptance of anxiety and not-quite-enough-sleep.

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