Reality Check II: September 11, 2001
In order to avoid the abominable Seattle area traffic, I like to get into work by 6:00 AM (thank goodness for flextime!) and leave in the afternoon by 3:00 PM before the I-5, I-405, and SR-520 freeways become parking lots. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was just starting across the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge and listening to KOMO 1000 News Radio when it was announced that a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. There were no other details and no mention as to the size of the plane or the damage done. By the time I pulled into the parking lot at work it was reported that another plane had crashed into the other tower. "Holy shit!" I cried outloud and called TJ on my cellphone to wake her up to turn on news. "What's going on?" she asked sleepily. "I don't know!" I shouted, "but it isn't good!"
Once inside the office I asked Tom, another early bird, if we still had that television set around we'd used earlier for game testing. "Why?" he asked. "There's something weird happening!" I screamed before running off in search of the TV. By the time we got the television hooked up and rabbit ears found we learned of the third plane flying into the Pentagon. We watched in horror, on live television, as the towers collapsed and then learned of yet a fourth plane crash somewhere in Pennsylvania. I was mortified, sick to my stomach, feeling at that moment as if I had somehow lost grasp with reality.
And in a way I had.
As it turns out 9/11 produced an earth-shattering effect inside me and awakened a sleeping giant that had been long in hibernation. Over the years I had slowly come to grips with my agnosticism and took the attitude that when it came to religion it was probably best just to let lying dogs lie. Following 9/11 my complacency was tossed right out the window and on September 14th, 2001, I composed a long jeremiad entitled Belief, Truth, Assumption, and Reason and posted it up on my web site as a form of catharsis. In this 'personal statement' I attempted to hash out my various thoughts on religion and fundamentalism and the sorry-state of belief systems and theistic worldviews. I riled against the utter lack of critical thinking in most facets of society, especially in those inclined to blindly obey religious tenets, and cautioned against societal enculturation and religious indoctrination.
A few days after posting my long tirade I realized I hadn't studied religious trends or read any 'scholarly' religious books for several years and had been slowly weaving my way outside of the loop. With conviction of purpose and heightened zealousness, I began researching books on the Internet and purchasing them by the score. I enrolled in the Questia online library to have 24/7 access to over 1,5000,000 books, journals, and articles. I subscribed to the Biblical Archaeology Review and bought 26 years of back issues archived on CD-ROMs. Books began pouring in from all over the globe, sometimes four or five a day, and for two years I read nothing else but religious and philosophical literature. At the end of two years I realized I'd added another five-hundred books to my bulging office library now stacked two-deep on shelves that stretched floor to ceiling. And then as quickly as I started buying books following 9/11 I suddenly stopped. I was finished, realizing that my two years of religious 'research' was just my way of working through my grief. Because I'd run out of room in my home office, I decided to start selling off my books, so set up an online bookstore on eBay. I also realized I wasn't ready to stop studing and doing research, because I'd found a groove and my scholarly juices were flowing.
All at once a solution came to me. After a twenty-five year hiatus, I would return to graduate school to finally earn my Master's. After spending several months researching numerous university and accredited degree options, I finally applied to the Master of Arts in Humanities program through California State University, Dominguez Hills and, once accepted, started classes in the 2004 Summer Trimester. It was hard work. Before earning my degree I would have to read an additional 250 books, write 50+ papers, and produce a committee-approved Master's Thesis, all while working full time in the Compatibility & Configuration Hardware Lab at Microsoft.
