Something strange happens when all of a sudden you are forced to deal with huge existential issues -- life, death, love, faith --- on a daily basis. When the larger-than-life gets mixed in with the mundane. The sound of a plane overhead makes you question your own mortality. Lunchtime conversations with co-workers revolve around the effectiveness of gas masks. You spend an average workday not only checking e-mail and fixing the printer, but pondering the nature of good and evil and whether life as you know it is about to change forever (or perhaps already has.) And the huge nature of recent events makes everyday tasks seem downright trivial. How can I concentrate on a weekly status report when over 6,000 people are still missing under 60 feet of rubble? Is it OK to go grocery shopping or to laugh when there are still so many people suffering? By most accounts, we're on the brink of an unprecedented kind of "war," one that will affect human beings across the globe, but I still have to water my plants. How to reconcile the bigness of it all with the littleness of it all? How can my mind handle thoughts of death and where to buy stamps at the same time?

This schism makes things feel a bit surreal. Reality becomes heightened. Super-charged. Everything takes on greater meaning and, most especially human relationships. In the face of such a monumentally inhumane act, the human connection becomes more important than ever. For me, it is human interaction that grounds me and serves as the bridge between the incomprehensible events of September 11 and my everyday life.

So I make a point of taking a break from writing that status report in order to talk with a co-worker about the morning's news. Or while paying for my groceries, I exchange instinctive smiles with the cashier as we both try to say, "Thank you for being another caring human being and for being in this with me." While watering my plants, I pick up the phone and call a friend simply to touch base. Connecting with other human beings in this way grounds me. It reaffirms our shared humanity and reminds me that we are in this together, collectively.

We turn to each other to talk, tell stories, process the unimaginable. It seems we can't talk enough. We can't get enough opinions or viewpoints, can't hear or read enough stories. Remarkably, our appetite for re-hashing is insatiable. In the staggering week that followed, we were soothed by candlelight vigils and memorial services and the human connections those gatherings fostered. But now that those have waned somewhat, we seek other outlets.

So we talk around the water cooler at work, over the dinner table at home, on the bus to work, standing in line with strangers at the post office or even next to them on airplanes. All conversations invariably lead to the same subject, because all other subjects pale in comparison. And we talk about the tragedies together as if we were one big family discussing the death of a relative. Social barriers evaporate, and strangers talk to one another as if they have common bonds. Because they do.

Through sharing with other human beings we reaffirm our own sense of self. We can face a friend and say "I can't believe what happened" and feel reassured simply by hearing them say it back. In that moment, we share the same reality and that is so vitally important. These little connections throughout the day build upon one another and are sustaining. They get us through. They allow us to conduct "business as usual" when absolutely nothing feels usual.

Sometimes I think about the poignant and heart-wrenching image of the two people holding hands while jumping from the besieged World Trade Center. As I wash the dishes, I wonder to myself -- did they know each other? Were they friends? Strangers? Married? Or acquaintances who passed each other in the hallway everyday? I realize finally their relationship really doesn't matter because in their last few seconds they forged a bond that transcended definition. They were simply two human beings giving each other the strength and courage they needed to face that ultimate moment. Even if they had never had a conversation before, their souls were fused in those final minutes.

That is how I picture all of those around the world saddened by this tragedy. Strangers and friends alike, of all different races and nationalities, holding hands and fusing souls in order to give each other the strength and courage they need to get through this painful and uncertain time.

:: Laurie Mittenthal

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Harvard University professor Stephen Jay Gould has published a gripping essay in this week's New York Times (09/26/01). Gould has stood at the scene of two devastating acts of terror in New York City but prefers to draw his attention to the "sublime" vastness of what he has witnessed since the tragedies occurred:

"In human terms, ground zero is the focal point for a vast web of bustling goodness, channeling uncountable deeds of kindness from an entire planet -- the acts that must be recorded to reaffirm the overwhelming weight of human decency."

Read the entire article in the New York Times.

Learn more about Stephen Jay Gould.

What have you read or heard about the tragedy that has moved you or made you think? Talk to us. Share your thoughts.