A gentle reminder that, now more than ever, flying is our punishment for daring to defy gravity.
Nein Quarterly (Eric Jarosinski)
Air travel is the opposite of freedom. During security screening, you are told where to step and where to look, you and your belongings are searched, and everything has been planned and decided for you. It’s worse than being a child, because while your parents take your freedom benevolently, airports and airlines do so indifferently.
This admittedly not particularly original thought occurs to me while backpacking in the Sierra Nevada after having spent most of the last two weeks either at airports, airport hotels or in the air. The mountains couldn’t be more different from an airport. Everywhere I look, there’s texture. It’s in the clouds, the wildflowers, the trees, the rocks and the mountains themselves. In an airport, the surfaces are smooth and mostly off-white. In the mountains, I can do whatever I want. If I don’t feel like walking on a particular trail, I can either step off the trail and walk cross-country, or I can stop walking and sit down under a tree. I can take a nap, lying down horizontally. I can pee whenever and wherever I want without having to wait for the seatbelt sign to come off.
There’s probably no more pleasant way to organize air travel while keeping it affordable to most of us, and I’m willing to sacrifice comfort and freedom for traveling to another city halfway around the globe in just a few hours. Working at an airport or for an airline is different. On my most recent flight, I chatted with a flight attendant who was nearing retirement. He told me that because of his long employment with the airline, he’ll get free air travel for the rest of his life, yet he’s planning to never step foot on a plane again once he’s retired.
Nehaveigur 