This is just a stellar essay on the 'Falling Man'

[bigtree]

...devastatingly sad, but it may be one of the best accounts out there. (I don't recommend this for everyone. Take care, as these 9-11 remembrances can be very emotionally triggering)

Link to tweet

The Falling Man
An unforgettable story.
By Tom Junod
Sep 9, 2016

In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced it. If he were not falling, he might very well be flying. He appears relaxed, hurtling through the air. He appears comfortable in the grip of unimaginable motion. He does not appear intimidated by gravity's divine suction or by what awaits him. His arms are by his side, only slightly outriggered. His left leg is bent at the knee, almost casually. His white shirt, or jacket, or frock, is billowing free of his black pants. His black high-tops are still on his feet. In all the other pictures, the people who did what he did—who jumped—appear to be struggling against horrific discrepancies of scale. They are made puny by the backdrop of the towers, which loom like colossi, and then by the event itself. Some of them are shirtless; their shoes fly off as they flail and fall; they look confused, as though trying to swim down the side of a mountain. The man in the picture, by contrast, is perfectly vertical, and so is in accord with the lines of the buildings behind him. He splits them, bisects them: Everything to the left of him in the picture is the North Tower; everything to the right, the South. Though oblivious to the geometric balance he has achieved, he is the essential element in the creation of a new flag, a banner composed entirely of steel bars shining in the sun. Some people who look at the picture see stoicism, willpower, a portrait of resignation; others see something else—something discordant and therefore terrible: freedom. There is something almost rebellious in the man's posture, as though once faced with the inevitability of death, he decided to get on with it; as though he were a missile, a spear, bent on attaining his own end. He is, fifteen seconds past 9:41 a.m. EST, the moment the picture is taken, in the clutches of pure physics, accelerating at a rate of thirty-two feet per second squared. He will soon be traveling at upwards of 150 miles per hour, and he is upside down. In the picture, he is frozen; in his life outside the frame, he drops and keeps dropping until he disappears.

The photographer is no stranger to history; he knows it is something that happens later. In the actual moment history is made, it is usually made in terror and confusion, and so it is up to people like him—paid witnesses—to have the presence of mind to attend to its manufacture. The photographer has that presence of mind and has had it since he was a young man. When he was twenty-one years old, he was standing right behind Bobby Kennedy when Bobby Kennedy was shot in the head. His jacket was spattered with Kennedy's blood, but he jumped on a table and shot pictures of Kennedy's open and ebbing eyes, and then of Ethel Kennedy crouching over her husband and begging photographers—begging him—not to take pictures.

Richard Drew has never done that. Although he has preserved the jacket patterned with Kennedy's blood, he has never not taken a picture, never averted his eye. He works for the Associated Press. He is a journalist. It is not up to him to reject the images that fill his frame, because one never knows when history is made until one makes it. It is not even up to him to distinguish if a body is alive or dead, because the camera makes no such distinctions, and he is in the business of shooting bodies, as all photographers are, unless they are Ansel Adams. Indeed, he was shooting bodies on the morning of September 11, 2001...

read more, w/photographs (emotionally sensitive material) : https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a48031/the-falling-man-tom-junod/

[hlthe2b]

1. Yes. I read it for the first time last year on this day. Incredibly poignant, devastating, and

thought-provoking. I ALWAYS found the stigma some placed on those who jumped, given the horrific alternative, just unbelievable. But, it was omnipresent.

[Drum]

2. Same here

[bigtree]

3. "They said my father was going to hell because he jumped"

"The Hernandezes looked at the decision to jump as a betrayal of love—as something Norberto was being accused of. The woman in Connecticut looks at the decision to jump as a loss of hope—as an absence that we, the living, now have to live with..."

...so many feelings and beliefs wrapped up in trying to comprehend all of the fallen. One common thread, sadness.

[hlthe2b]

4. I'll never understand those interpetations. When death is assured, imminent, unavoidable...

in a situation where one is left only with the manner of death, how can that be a betrayal? a loss of hope? Where was the hope to be found?

I don't wish to deride these very sympathetic family members. I just don't understand their thinking. I never will. And should I ever be faced with that kind of horrible reckoning, I hope those who care for me would see it as I do.

[Javaman]

5. I think it's a very primal fear.

burn to death or jump to death.

one avoids burning but knows that jumping is also certain death.

but jumping is something active and has an element of a false sense of survival.

nothing about the choice is a conscious one per say, just rationalized

but in the end but end the same way.

so incredibly heart breaking.

I still am so filled with emotion from that day that I have a hard time looking at these photos or any photos from that day.

[thesquanderer]

9. All good points. Also...

...if you do have the wherewithall to actually consider the two certain deaths, the death from the fall will be instantaneous on impact. There will be no physical pain/discomfort, unlike being burned alive or being asphixiated by smoke, which, relatively speaking, are more drawn-out, tortorous deaths. And in fact, to the type of person who enjoys skydiving or many thrill rides, the experience of falling can even be enjoyable. So your final moments may even be exhilirating, until you just... end. I can see many people feeling that's the better way to go.

Picking up from something else you said, there's also likely a survival instinct that simply says put off death as much as possible, and also, we need to escape unbearable discomfort however we can. If for example you are experiencing unbearable heat, and jumping is the only way to end it, your gut probably says jump, even if your brain knows that the end result will be the same, because it ends the immediate pain and maximizes your remaining seconds.

[Javaman]

10. all good points and I like your second paragraph...

"maximizing your remaining seconds".

hell of a choice. just heartbreaking.

[Earthshine2]

6. A last glimmer of freewill -- to take one's own life in impossible circumstances. nt

[MuseRider]

7. Reading it just now,

so many thoughts. I keep taking a break because so many things are clearer at later date. This seems very personal yet very universal. Well written and important I think.

Thank you for posting it. I apparently missed it last year.

[Submariner]

8. See it on Amazon Prime, 9/11: The Falling Man documentary

I watched it a long time ago. Very moving.