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Abstract

The uniqueness of the 9/11 trauma is that it is not unique, that its resonance cannot be blunted by encasing it in the past, since in our present, terrorist attacks ceaselessly threaten to erupt. To help ourselves and our patients, this article suggests a prospective diminishing the reification of immaculate states of being presided over by rationality (unless amended to reasonableness) to embrace life as an ambiguous uncertainty; to accept we are born into fear in the service of self-preservation and live in the context of iridescent experience that is characterized by the inexplicable mysteries of creation, time, existential life, and death; that we are better off if we drop any missions for perfection or for Truth “out there” corresponding to a nonhuman reality to enjoy, instead, an ethically based quest for richer and better human activity that applauds competing strategies and directions and tolerates disagreement. Life as an eccentric privilege.

Keywords

trauma 9/11 NYU

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Living Positively With Ambiguity

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