Thinking Outside The World
Dec 31st, 2007 by Eats Wombats
The New York Times has a great article on airport security follies. I rather enjoyed this comment
Ninety years ago, H.L. Mencken made this observation: “Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” La plus ca change…
However, it is a reminder that it’s over a year since I stepped aboard a plane. After years of long haul flights several times a year I miss it hugely. I feel grounded and my smaller carbon footprint doesn’t afford much in the way of pleasure.
Could there be a market I wonder for virtual plane flights? Wait, there already is. I recall reading about an Indian entrepreneur doing exactly that with a mothballed plane; going through the motions, sealtbelts, airline food, the works, all to give people an idea of what flying is like. I doubt, however, that the journeys were long enough to unwind. And what about that wonderful feeling of having arrived? — One of my dreariest journeys was a night spend flying in a triangle around Northern India, ending up back where I started.
Perhaps I should take up meditation instead of flying?
Religion works for some but I haven’t been religious since some bad turbulence a long time ago. Ever since I have tried to emulate a German whom the BBC journalist John Simpson sat beside on a rocky flight over the alps with a planeload of Italians, all praying for their lives. Simpson and his neighbour rolled their eyes at each other and then carried on reading and pretending that nothing was wrong. It became a northern European competition in stoicism. I wish I had bookmarked it. I don’t even know in which of his books the story is recounted. It’s very funny indeed. One of his best.
I need to make some New Year’s resolutions.
