Detached

Recent events in the U.S. are, I'm sure, in everyone's hearts and minds there. Not unlike 9/11, I imagine, though it seems the response to it has been somewhat different from various sides. I suppose you can't pick up a paper, turn on the TV, or to go work or a social gathering without being caught up in discussion about it. This kind of thing changes a country, affects the core of it, clarifies who we are and how we treat one another.

That is why sitting 6,000 miles away is like watching life happen from behind a sound proof window, the kind where you can see in but they can't see out, so it doesn't matter what I say, no one will hear. My knowledge of it is limited to whatever biased reporting appears on the internet. If not for the internet, I would hear nothing about it at all (partly due to a choice not to have TV or newspaper). It lends to a feeling of being detached. A friend of mine after 9/11 said, "It's like we're not being given a chance to mourn." I felt that way when a woman asked me if New York was near my house. I said no, and her response was, "oh, so then it didn't affect you."
This doesn't have the same strength of feeling as that, but there is a sense of built identity that you don't participate in, like when your family goes on a trip without you.