Get to Work

About 10 days after September 11th, 2001, I was back on an airplane.

No one was flying in that 9/11 moment.

But I had business to take care of in Tokyo and off I went.

It was a near-empty flight. I was one of two people in business clsss.

Economy had about 5 people.

I remember thinking, the crew outnumbers the passengers.

When we landed, the airport was a breeze. Not always the case at Narita.

Tokyo was a wee-bit less vibrant than usual. The hotel a little less busy.

But come Monday, when I arrived at the agency, it was as if nothing had happened on the other side of the world.

Sure, some discussion.

But it was time to get to work.

I can’t think of any better medicine to subdue the shock and pain of that time than the necessary rigor of getting down to work.

We are living, once again, in a ruptured moment. No matter your politics, the assassination on Thursday was cataclysmic.

So many questions raised about why, and who have we become in this country? A country that continues to tolerate acts of hate executed with the ease of a squeeze of a trigger on an all-too-accessible gun.

We’ve become the USA: The United States of Animosity.

I don’t know how to answer these questions.

I only know what to do when sh*t gets bad. And that’s put my head down and focus on my work.

I get real local and just do what I can to do good things with good people to just bring something good into the world.

Call it denial.

Maybe it is.

But at least work is productive.

Maybe that’s something you can try if you don’t know how to process what’s going on.

Image: Lewis Wickes Hine