![]() Me sitting at the table, on my left, the newspaper, on my right, the cup of coffee, in the middle of the table, the packet of biscuits." And don't ask me what the table was like because this was some time ago and I can't remember. ![]() Laden with all these new possessions, I go and sit at a table. Antoine often felt his life to be more tedious with this treasure, because in order not to be overly noticed he had deemed it wise to fall into as much a routine as possible and do everything as casually as possible, and so, as a consequence, despite the fact that he hated his wife and daughter, he didn't leave them, he came home to them every night and he ate the creamed chicken that his wife would prepare for him, he would accept the large, fleshy hand that would push him around while he sat around in his house in an attempt to read or watch the weather, he took out the trash, he got up on time every morning and took a quick, cold shower, he shaved, he acce #Quote by Justin Dobbs Also on the train he'd do a crossword puzzle and check his watch by rolling up his sleeve when he did so he almost fell asleep. For example, the man would pretend to be profoundly interested in something outside the train, such as the little girl who seemed to be jumping high up on a trampoline, just high enough so that she could spy the man on the train, and in this way he really did become quite interested in what occurred outside the train, although he would still jiggle the treasure, if only out of habit. And when on the train he rode to work he would jiggle it there also, but he would disguise his jiggling of the treasure on the train by devising a distraction. Inside a wool jacket the man had made a pocket for the treasure and from time to time he would jiggle the pocket, just to make sure that it was still there. The plane becomes a temple of humanism, where we put faith in all that get us and keeps us up in the air – engineers, pilots, researchers, air traffic controllers – a web of people, underwritten by collective knowledge, keeping us alive, together. What connects the ordinary and the extraordinary is a powerful trust in the human capacity to take us beyond the mundane. The cabin becomes our shared world, temporally removed from the world that we've left back on land. On the other hand, our 'in flight' experience is filled with the most unremarkable daily activities: reading a comic book, finishing a crossword puzzle, eating, sleeping. ![]() We confront death a little every time the doors close – and this closeness to death intensifies the extraordinary experience of being in flight. In its totality, the unnatural or extraordinary experience produces great fear and excitement. It gives us the unique perspective to look at the interaction of the natural and constructed in a truly holistic way. In flight we are able to view the most remote corners of the natural world and the vast spread of the world we have constructed. When we climb to 30,000 feet, our perspective looking down at the world becomes that of a deity, and the rules of time and space are altered as we rush over the earth. Being in flight is one of the most unnatural, extraordinary, ordinary experiences of modern life.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |