Flightster

Tight Spaces and Victorious Air

• by Colin Wright
• on December 21st, 2010
• 4 Comments

I love flying.

The cramped quarters, the stiff-backed seats, the tiny servings of everything and the increasingly stringent security measures.

And though you may be able to detect a bit of sarcasm in that last statement, I DO love flying, and partially BECAUSE of all those little inadequacies. In fact, my favorite thing about flying is probably that my options are severely limited.

I’m stuck. In a metal tube. Thousands of feet in the air. A rousing game of racquetball isn’t on the menu, nor is getting up and walking around, doing yoga or yelling ‘bomb!’

I find that flying is the perfect time for self-reflection.

For a long time I would take 20 minutes a day and just sit. I wouldn’t talk to anyone, listen to any music, tap my fingers on anything. I’d just sit. It was amazing.

The kinds of things you think about when you have nothing to do BUT think are a lot different from what you think about during those everyday spare seconds, snatched up and utilized in between meetings and checking Twitter.

It’s a very different mental process than a focused brainstorming session or other brain-exercising activity. Those are organized endeavors with a defined goal, whereas just spacing out is purely free-form.

It’s the difference between playing scales and playing jazz; you can do the first with style, but it has a predictable outcome. With the second, however, you never know what you’ll end up with. Maybe nothing. Maybe a masterpiece.

Taking 20 minutes worth of free-thinking time was enough to keep me doing it every day for 2 years, so imagine how much I love having, oh I don’t know, a 13-hour flight between Bangkok and Los Angeles to mentally meander.

There’s something about knowing that I’m on my way somewhere, too, that makes me feel like being productive. When I’m not staring off into space thinking about whatever comes to mind, I’m writing (like right now) or doodling or reading or otherwise creating something or bettering myself.

The background noise and vibrations are a constant reminder that I’m already being productive (in transit from one adventure to the next!) and that gives me the thrill of a minor victory. That thrill gets the momentum going and the snowball just gets bigger and bigger as I curl up against the window, try hard not to bump the person sitting next to me and slowly go wild (creatively speaking).

And then there’s the sensation and idea of flying itself.

I make it a point to always look out the window during takeoff and landing, because both events make me so proud to be a human being. WE did this. Not you and me personally, but as a species we created technology that allows us to – fairly casually – FLY. Like very large birds. It’s astounding when you think about it, and I always do.

Landing is just as important as taking off, of course, because it’s the completion of the cycle…the dots on our intellectual ‘i’s and the slashes across our ‘t’s. A takeoff without a landing is an ambition without a realization, which is in itself fantastic but not terribly inspiring.

If you can nail that landing, however, and get everyone safely home every time, you’ve got a culture-changing movement rather than just a mode of transportation.

At the end of the day, just knowing that I can – with a little cash and a ride to the airport – go ANYWHERE in the world, makes me grin a little too wide and WANT to go all those places that I have access to.

I don’t take for granted that in my grandparents’ time what I’m doing for a living – traveling the world and learning about it on the ground – wouldn’t be possible for any but the wealthiest people on the planet. Further, the infrastructure wasn’t there to support more than a handful of globetrotters, and even they had issues telling their stories and sharing what they learned with the world.

We live in amazing times, folks, and we all appreciate the benefits in different ways.

For some, it’s admiring cramped spaces, getting groped by security staff and being inspired by the restrictions. For others, it’s seeing the sites they’ve always admired on postcards and posters.

Whatever your reason for traveling, take a moment the next time you’re lifting off and take a deep breath.

Taste that? It’s the air; it tastes like victory.

Colin Wright

Colin Wright is a minimalist, branding expert and serial entrepreneur. While running his blog Exile Lifestyle ,his branding studio Colin Is My Name and his e-publishing business ebookling. Colin travels the world (moving to a new country every 4 months), meeting up with amazing people, giving talks (to audiences ranging from tech industry professionals to college students to Catholic school girls) and hunting down new and interesting experiences.