Mike Leidemann
Critical incident opens our eyes

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Columnist

In psychology it's called a critical incident. It's something so far outside the normal range of human experience, there's just no understanding. The death of a child. The murder of a loved one. A family massacred. Anything so traumatic that you'll never be the same.

Sometimes it happens on a national scale, too.

Pompeii buried by Mount Vesuvius. Waterloo. The Holocaust. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The assassination of President Kennedy.

And now this.

Thousands dead. A world in shock. Terrorism and chaos like we never imagined. Repercussions that we haven't even begun to fathom.

All we can do is watch. We stare at the television in disbelief. We shake our heads. We tell our children to take care. We hug our loved ones.

There's nothing in our nation's history to compare. Not the Civil War. Not Pearl Harbor. Not Oklahoma City.

Nothing.

All we can do is wonder what we did to deserve this. Who could be so cruel? Does somebody really hate us so much? Or are we dealing with crazy people and a world gone mad?

"What really puts this off the scale is that it's manmade," said police psychologist Gloria Neumann. "This is human beings versus human beings. It's not nature. Someone who looks and acts very much like me has done this to people very much like me. That's what makes it so devastating."

Now we learn again the extent of evil in the world. As if we need to be reminded. We hope and pray for a return to sanity.

Not a chance.

The world has had its first critical incident. It shakes you to your foundation. It challenges your beliefs. It calls your faith into question. It unsettles your soul. It makes you aware of your mortality.

The politicians say we'll come back stronger than ever. We always do.

The psychologists say the pain will fade. It always does.

Someday, things will return to normal again. They always do.

Someday, we'll get back into our routine. The business of America will once again be business as usual.

Someday, we'll get back on airplanes and fly off on vacation again. We'll stand once again on 100-story high-rises and admire the view.

We'll visit New York to see Broadway and Yankee Stadium. We'll go back to Washington to see the monuments and the Mall.

Someday, we'll be able to make sense of it all. Someday we'll know what to think.

Or maybe not.

Yes, things will return to normal. But they'll never be the same.

Mike Leidemann's columns appear Thursdays and Saturdays. Reach him at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com