05/16/02: The Honeymoon Trip
 

I wrote this last month when I was coming back home from my honeymoon. I originally put this in my Kuro5hin.org diary. But i've since decided to not use it.

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As I fly above the earth, I can see the slight curvature of the earth in the distance. It's one thing to be told a thing, but quite another to be seeing it for yourself.

Clouds are flying below me, flitting away in the opposite direction that we are traveling. I am told that if you fly high enough into the atmosphere, you can see the blackness of space. I'm not sure i'm comfortable flying that high in this plane, but seeing the stars during the daytime would be a wonderful sight.

When I boarded the airplane, I tried to assess all the other passengers. As far as I can tell, none of them look criminal. The men look strong, though. I believe we could take most anyone.

The reality of Disneyworld is fast becoming a fading memory; something we will look back on with fondness. Strange how things seem so immediate and detailed when they're happening, yet when the moment passes it becomes like smoke or a web. You can remember the general picture, and the most notable occurances, but the immediacy is gone -- no new options are open to you. You can't focus in on the details anymore -- only what you thought to observe at that time remains.

There's a fire on the ground below us. Though the fire is undoubtaby huge, the smoke rises not even an inch into the sky before it dissipates.

The book i'm reading says that there's no such thing as miracles -- only the illusion of magic. I like that. So many things seem like magic. When we see a wonderous thing and have no idea how it works, the simplest explanation is that there is no explanation. It simply is. Like my plane taking off from the runway -- if I had not been told aboug high and low air pressure surrounding the wings, I might be inclined to think that flight had no explanation. It simply exists.

Curiosity is the driving force that makes us human; yet many people choose the easy way out. It seems so sad that they won't try to figure things out for themselves.

Take heaven, for example. If it exists, where is it? What sort of things is it made up of? Are the laws of physics the same or different? If it is the latter, then why? No one asks these questions, because they don't want to know the answers. They'd like to believe that there are no explanations -- it simply is. To ask them to attempt to explain their mythology is to shatter their dreams. If heaven were explained, would it be somehow less great?

It seems a criminal act to them to ask them to reason out their fantasies; almost as if the asker is missing the point.

Just what is the point, anyway? Salvation -- or to feel safe and secure? Everyone wants answers. It's like a deep, deep craving that you can't squelch. The real question is, does it matter to you whether your answers are right?

I'm now on a smaller plane, what my wife has dubbed a "puddle-jumper". We are now headed back to Fort Smith.

Shortly before boarding, an airline official called all the passengers into a huddle in the lobby to beg for "volunteers". They had overbooked our flight by four people, and were offering a later flight plus round-trip tickets to anywhere as an incentive to volunteer.

Fear budded in the eyes of nearly all the passengers -- fear of being "volunteered" at random. But in the end, four people actually did volunteer. The niceness of Arkansans amazes me.

The flight attendant also had fear in her eyes. She ordered people about in an attempt to retain control of the chaotic situation. She assembled the passengers in a perfectly straight line and led us to the plane. We took a weird zig-zag path. An old lady tried to forge a sane path and was yelled at for violating our straight line.

After we boarded the plane, begging for one more volunteer commenced. After getting four voluteers back at the terminal, they still didn't have their act together. One more. We were told that the weight of the plane was too much, and that either baggage or a passenger had to go. I winced. I remembered reading of an airline disaster where the luggage was not properly tied down. Shortly after takeoff the luggage shifted and the plane took a nosedive into the earth. All the passengers died.

Katherine asked if maybe they had a giant scale underneath the airplane, so that they could make double-sure the plane could carry our weight. I replied that I seriously doubted it.

In the end, though, they got their one last volunteer, and the plane took off just fine.

I wondered what it must be like to be that last volunteer -- to have gone through all the pre-flight rigamarole and be sitting in our seat, only to have to leave the aircraft and go back inside. This is what we all had feared -- that it might be us. But she sacrificed herself for us (and a round-trip ticket to anywhere). We were all glad it was her and not us. She would arrive in Fort Smith 4 hours after us.

Katherine and I were sitting at an exit seat. Another man was moved to the seat adjacent to us, so as to have able-bodied people near the doors. An old lady originally had this seat, but she was booted out of it, as the flight attendant judged her too weak and frail to operate the door.

As the flight attendant instructed us on the use of the emergency exit doors, she warned us that if we pressed too hard, we would fall through the door and the propellers would "end our life". This woman had serious fear issues.

I wondered what her reaction was to the Al-Qaeda attacks. I was certainly witnessing the end result, but what went through her mind when it happened? I bet she freaked. If it were me, I would have quit the very next day.

It's bravery, of a sort. She obviously had a strong reaction of fear -- like anyone would. Yet she continues to go to work daily. Perhaps there should be action-figures of flight attendants?