Introduction
“For unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax.”
—Alan Watts
September 11, 2001 began as a glorious morning. The sky over New York City was clear, a cloudless lapis blue. Joel Kanasky, a firefighter for the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) Rescue Company 1, was teaching a scuba diving class when he heard about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. As he made his way downtown, he could see the smoke and flames breaching the beautiful sky. He watched, horrified, along with the rest of us as the South Tower fell. He arrived at the site around forty minutes after his company deployed.
He entered the lobby of the North Tower looking for his crew. He approached a battalion chief—according to Joel, “a tough old Marine-coot”—who died later that day when the North Tower fell. The chief gave Joel an order to get some hydraulic jacks and torches, because there were steel beams pinning...