
The bomb that changed my life (2011) - jacquesm
http://swombat.com/2011/12/19/bomb-changed-my-life/
======
neebz
It's a great read. Though you can only relate to it when bombs are like a once
in a lifetime thing.

Living in Peshawar, where bomb blasts are a regular occurrence, you slowly get
immune to it. To such an extent that even the media doesn't care (we just had
a blast only 2 miles away from my home killing 16 today).

You get to a stage that you just start living in fear. Worrying about your
family whenever they go out.

~~~
monsterix
Today morning I read about this bomb blast killing wedding guests and families
in Afghanistan [1]. Unfortunately, it was carried out by one of us. I ignored
the news, in some sort of natural filter, to avoid registering negatives of
the world. There are just so many of them.

Now after read Daniel's experience, and your comment about Peshawar Neebz, I
feel what a terrible place and time I have been born in. Why does all this
have to happen? Who is terrorist for whom? And why do innocents have to die or
face these experiences at all? For which perhaps only the political leaders
are responsible.

[1] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-125820/US-bomb-
kills...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-125820/US-bomb-
kills-30-Afghan-wedding.html)

~~~
ableal
> I feel what a terrible place and time I have been born in.

I wouldn't advise the XIII century. Or most of the XX. Or the 5th BC. Or ...

As a matter of fact, you probably just have "better" news of the world, not
objectively worse conditions. There was a post about that recently ...

~~~
1123581321
Why do you single out the XIII century? In Western/Southern Europe and much of
Asia, it was in many respects a golden age. The XIV century was worse, most
notably due to the plague.

~~~
ableal
Pretty random, first thing that occurred to me. You probably did not want to
be in this guy's path: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan>

(I may have been echoing an old SF story where a XXX century displaced person
was telling a friend about his punishment for trying a ruthless power grab,
which was being dumped in Warsaw in September 1939. However, he had bounced
back, remaking a good life. But the "friend" was an agent who then proceeded
to continue the punishment by dumping him in Baghdad before Genghis hit it
...).

Anyways, pick a century, any century ...

~~~
1123581321
The Mongols are exactly why I didn't mention the space between Asia and
Western Europe. To tie in the Crusades comment below, I also didn't mention
Northern Africa or the Middle East. Anyway, once again it seems I've read too
much into a random number, similarly to when I jumped all over someone on
Reddit for saying nothing happened in 1789!

------
ismarc
I have a tattoo on each of my forearms, one says "love life" and the other
says "embrace death". I got them while I was in the military, but independent
of being in the military. I had a friend (unrelated brother would be another
term) who was shot and killed by his father in law. He knew it was coming, he
may have been able to avoid dying himself, but didn't. I had spoken to him
about life and death multiple times, and he always lived such that if he were
to die that moment, he wouldn't have any regrets, but he clung to and enjoyed
life. I'm not going to go into the full story of the details surrounding his
death (I am willing to over email if anyone's really wants to know), but I got
the tattoos shortly afterwards as a constant reminder. It's about being the
person you want to be, doing the right thing even if it isn't the easy thing,
living life so that if you died right now you could be proud of how you lived
your life.

I have met very few people who live their lives the same way (many claim to,
or even do when it's the easy path, but stray when it's not) and there are
many people who have similar experiences but go on to just live in fear, or
eventually put it to the back of their minds. Everyone, death is inevitable
(even if we somehow achieve immortality, there's the heat death of the
universe). No matter how long or short your life is, you decide where it goes
and you are the judge of the quality of how you lived that life.

------
ghc
I needed this. I have spent the past 24 hours shell-shocked.

By pure chance I was not at my usual spectator spot at the marathon yesterday
for the first time in 4 years: in front of the storefront where the first bomb
went off.

It's all thanks to pure happenstance: for the first time in years I am no
longer a remote worker; the company that acquired my startup last fall has
offices in the suburbs and I am not yet past the 6 month moratorium on taking
vacation days.

The unlikely series of events that led to me not being present until about 30
minutes after the blasts is something I am still coming to terms with. I
almost don't have time to...my building is still under armed lockdown because
I live a mere block from the scene. I dread having to walk that route someday
soon.

Still, I hate the company that acquired my startup, even if the acquisition
potentially saved me grave injury. I think it's past time I quit, instead of
just complaining about it and hoping for dividends.

~~~
elliottcarlson
After the tragedies of 9/11 I had to return to my downtown office, just a few
blocks from the towers. It was one thing to be there the day of (and quite
similarly being in a situation of things being quite different had I been a
little earlier that day) - but seeing the aftermath was quite tough. It gets
better - and while the day and events has not been forgotten, the scene just
doesn't bring that fear anymore - not for a long time now.

You'll be fine. Talk to your friends and family when you feel like you aren't.
In the end, you will be fine.

~~~
ghc
The worst part about all of this has been the many scenes I saw on Monday that
caused flashbacks to memories of 9/11. Nothing I saw Monday compares to the
horror of being with friends waiting to find out that yes, their parents had
died in the WTC. Even seeing blood and police everywhere steel feels abstract.

I am relatively certain that I won't be fearful (or at least I hope so). I
just hope passing by the scene will not cause an emotional response that I
can't hold back. Most weeks I pass by the spot a dozen times or more, and I
don't want to unconsciously play a game of "what if" every time I'm there.

~~~
elliottcarlson
It's hard to predict the emotional response you might get - nothing is for
certain until you are there. Right after 9/11 I was numb, but I didn't have a
major response going back to our offices. My company at the time shut down not
long after and I started working in midtown. It wasn't until the year
anniversary that I decided to take a different route in to work, just to go by
the proceedings down there - my emotional response was bad - I went to city
hall park and sat there, reflecting for a good half hour before I could
continue to work. I remember vividly an elderly woman coming and sitting next
to me to make sure I was ok.

It takes time. The "what if" feeling is an awkward one to deal with - but
instead of worrying, live life to the fullest. That "what if" will always be
there for so many other reasons.

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ultimoo
This is a great piece.

Conveys the harsh cold ground reality of a bomb blast. I lost a good friend in
the German Bakery bomb blasts that struck Pune, India in 2010 and this story
made me well up. We are all just meat bags held up with a few bones and an
explosion is capable of ending all the life we have spent years building
around ourselves and our loved ones. Terrorists truly suck.

~~~
rubikscube
"We all just meat bags." No. Can we stop with the nerd reductionist attitude
so prevalent on sites like this? The majority of people don't consider human
life to be simply "just meat bags."

Sorry for the loss of your friend.

~~~
mikeash
It doesn't matter what the majority of people think. That is ultimately what
we are, and the tragedy of being killed by a bomb reinforces it.

~~~
ars
Ultimately? Really?

If you are going to deconstruct that way, why stop there, why not bags of
water? Or a random assortment of atoms?

By that reasoning a work of art is just random colors and there is no reason
to admire it.

But in actuality the whole is greater than the parts, and that applies to
people too.

~~~
mikeash
"By that reasoning a work of art is just random colors and there is no reason
to admire it."

I disagree. There is no conflict between admiring the organization of the
fundamental particles and realizing that stuff is ultimately just big
collections of fundamental particles.

~~~
ars
Yes, but "realizing that stuff is ultimately just big collections of
fundamental particles" is probably the ultimate in pointless activities.
(Unless of course you are studying particle physics.)

By that measure every single thing that exists is exactly identical to
everything else. If nothing is different, then nothing matters, and nothing
has value.

Let's just short circuit that entire pointless line of thought and look at the
whole, not just the parts.

~~~
tekacs
I would add to my sibling comment here that one should note that a particular
characteristic of the engineer (or software developer) is the ability to
internalise all of the layers of a system and to be able to treat it as
whichever subset of the layers are relevant at any given time.

Doing so hardly means that one considers all such systems equivalent or indeed
that one doesn't think of a reductionist view as just the most reified (though
pretty damned vague) possible view of the system.

~~~
mikeash
That's a great point. All layers are correct, but most won't be useful for a
given problem.

If you're thinking about, say, crowd reactions, then you don't want the
"meatbag" model. Instead, you need a higher-level psychological model.
However, if your problem is "what kind of injuries result from a bomb", then
the "meatbag" model is right on.

Thinking of the body as a loose confederation of fundamental particles is
fairly useless when trying to decide how much to charge for a product, but
it's an _excellent_ model when e.g. figuring out how much radiation a person
will absorb from a source.

No layer denies the usefulness or reality of any of the others.

~~~
ars
We can agree here. And note that I had no issue with the use of the word
meatbag to describe bomb effects.

It was your use of the word "ultimately" that I objected to.

~~~
mikeash
I don't get why. If you keep stripping away the abstractions, that is where
you end up.

~~~
ars
No, if you keep stripping away the abstractions you end up with quarks.

------
jolenzy
14 years ago, I have survived a war. In the second day of NATO attack to
Serbia, I have seen a huge explosion only 5-6 km away. That was like in the
movies. That was the scariest explosion I've ever seen. First only a big
cupola, and then a terrifying sound. Later I realized that this event changed
my life. In better way. You learn to appreciate life.

------
doug4hn
When I was a kid, I experienced the explosion at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic
Games. Definitely changed my life. Did anyone else here go thru that?

------
willsmith
I kind of feel bad, but I love this kind of reading. It gives you some solemn
introspection- this could happen to me, kind of thoughts

~~~
willismichael
I don't think there's any reason to feel bad about that.

~~~
pyre
It probably feels weird saying something like, "I crave reading first-hand
accounts of near-death experiences." It indirectly implies that you derive
pleasure from people being in these situations.

I agree that if someone went to the trouble of writing and sharing their
experiences, being touched/affected by it is a complement to the person.

~~~
swombat
For what it's worth, it doesn't make me feel bad at all that someone likes to
read this. Obviously, I wouldn't have written and posted it if I didn't want
to share it, and I wouldn't share it with some perverse intention to have
people feel guilty for reading it.

I think there's a pretty thick line to be drawn between being fascinated by
accounts like this one, shared willingly, and being obsessed by reading or
viewing accounts extracted from people by the media, sometimes against their
will or understanding... One is voyeurism, the other is just learning about
someone's experience from them...

------
simonbarker87
Great writing Daniel and such a shame it comes off the back of a harrowing
experience. I think it must have changed you, probably in ways much less
obvious than just prompting you to (a year later) start your own business.

I've met a couple of people who did "look to the right", so to speak, and your
decision not to look should be right up there with the best decisions you've
ever made.

~~~
swombat
> I've met a couple of people who did "look to the right", so to speak, and
> your decision not to look should be right up there with the best decisions
> you've ever made.

It's one of those strange things when the impulse decision to limit
experience, rather than expand it, seems to have been the right one. Sometimes
it's better to be conservative. Some part of my brain was seemingly
functioning well enough to protect me from myself there. I did not know
anything about PTSD at the time, and thankfully I still have no first-hand
experience of it, but from what I've read about it that would have been a
perfect occasion to inflict that on myself for no good reason... So yes, I'm
pretty happy about that decision too...!

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shocks
I have read this a couple of times. Very powerful.

If you have yet to read this, I thoroughly recommend you do.

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Angostura
Thanks for posting this, I didn't see it when it was first published.

~~~
jacquesm
You're welcome. After yesterdays events this kept coming back up in my
thoughts and I figured I should re-post it.

------
bdz
That James Holden track can also change your life.

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emilioolivares
Powerful stuff, great read for all in light of yesterday's events.

------
hawkharris
Very moving story.

------
camperman
This is beautifully written and very moving Daniel. I hope the memory of the
trauma is truly in the past and that the event really has changed you for the
better.

~~~
swombat
Thanks. I believe so, on both counts. At this point I am even happier with my
life than when I wrote this article (though recent progress cannot really be
blamed on that bomb anymore!)

