I woke up this morning knowing they were doing the September 11 thing in New York, so I switched on the TV and they were reading off the names. I ended up doing my morning sitting with the TV on and the names contributing to the stream of consciousness.

I tried to visualize what it might have been like in the North Tower above the impact zone. No one in the North Tower above the impact zone got out because all the elevators and stairwells were destroyed by the impact, unlike in the South Tower where one stairwell remained intact and passable from top to bottom.

I imagine very few people noticed the first plane approaching, but if they did and watched it, the feeling that this was very, very bad and something was about to go very wrong. I imagine that it was bad from the moment of the first impact.

Everyone would have heard the thunderous sound of the jet approaching seconds before impact, everyone would have felt the impact and explosion, everyone would have felt the building sway. The glass would have shattered and the scene would have immediately been chaotic and panicked. After that, it progressively got worse as smoke and fumes filled the upper floors, and for many people the situation was so literally and absolutely unbearable that it was a better decision to jump.

The reading of the names was very emotional, and I empathized and sympathized with the family and friends of victims. But I have to expand the scope of my sympathy beyond the sorrow of the people on TV who have the privilege of living in the wealthiest nation to have their sorrow broadcast publicly.

My sympathy goes around the world to the countless people who also grieve for brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, victims of U.S. policies and international government and corporate actions that indirectly contribute to the rage that led to September 11.

I don't mean to open myself up to accusations that I'm blaming the U.S. itself for September 11, or belittling anyone's grief. I'm just extending my sympathy to where I feel it properly belongs. We can selfishly own our grief and believe we are the only ones affected, but I can't listen exclusively to the grief over loved ones in New York without also feeling the grief of thousands more around the world who I don't hear in memorium on the TV. They also have brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons.

Still, the world changed that day, that's for sure. Historically speaking, it was easily the worst day of my life.