But only to cherish that we have survived and that we live is not enough. To act on it would be more fulfilling. In the most self-centered of moments, I took the happenstance physical shields--the Doxycycline, for example--and emotional insulations from the various September 11th-related insecurities to be a sign that I was meant to do something great in life. Perhaps a higher power granted me the privilege of life for a reason. Taken literally, that may sound ridiculous. But in reality, it offered a reminder for me and others to gain an urgency to get off the couch, so to speak, and pursue what we had before desired but were too nonchalant to realize.

While a good DJ friend of mine was staying with me in the days after September 11th--his downtown apartment was affected by the dust and smoke--he vowed to practice spinning records more often to become better, if not great one day. Another close friend has immersed in her hobby of taking photographs, with the view of becoming better, if not professional. Along with another friend, I have since begun to play in an indoor soccer league for sport and for health. I have also picked up the violin again, having played it for nearly 18 years with a hiatus in the last couple years. We are all young professionals who had, in our respective ways, succumbed to "Groundhog Day" routines and neglected to explore beyond our professions. Not that we have been unmotivated people, just that especially now we recognize reasons aplenty to live and, yes, to pursue our passions. A gradual process of carpe diem has, in effect, caused us to motivate to act on our respective futures. It has made this year's New Year's resolutions so much more meaningful, whether expressed or not. At the very least I hope to maintain the thought that we are privileged to live one life, and to spend it on the couch would indeed be a waste.

In the immediate days and weeks after September 11th, there was a lot of talk of the tragedy everywhere, especially in New York, among friends, on the Internet, on the news, at the office. Given that, I mostly refrained from adding to the babble, much of which, I felt, gets lost anyway. Instead, I sat down the following Sunday, September 16th, to revert to old habits of submitting journal entries and to collect my thoughts on paper. I was searching for a resolution to my instinctive feeling of guilt. That inquiry, I realize now, has been more rhetorical than anything else. Rather than resolving itself, that survivor's guilt has evolved into perhaps a reluctant ambivalence, one that is not by choice, just by happenstance. What more could I have done? What more could I now feel? In one way or another, it has been the conscience of a city, a country, a world of survivors. Until I find a more appropriate word that describes what I have sensed since September 11, 2001, I arrive only at 'guilt,' but have discovered in the inquiry a certain solace and motivation.