Gizmodo is 20 years old! To celebrate the anniversary, we're looking back at some of the most significant ways our lives have been thrown for a loop by our digital tools. Like so many others after 9/11, I felt spiritually and existentially lost. It's hard to believe now, but I was a regular churchgoer at the time. Watching those planes smash into the World Trade Center woke me from my extended cerebral slumber and I haven't set foot in a church since, aside from the occasional wedding or baptism. I didn't realize it at the time, but that godawful day triggered an intrapersonal renaissance in which my passion for science and philosophy was resuscitated. My marriage didn't survive this mental reboot and return to form, but it did lead me to some very positive places, resulting in my adoption of secular Buddhism, meditation, and a decade-long stint with vegetarianism.