Simone

I don’t mind flying, but that’s probably because I don’t do it often enough. As a child, it was glamorous and exciting because it meant the luxury of vacation. With age, I’ve become accustomed to its more practical purposes, like a trip to see family, and thus, less impressed by recycled air and synchronized seat belt demonstration. However, there is something that always makes me marvel at air travel.

Generally, I am easygoing person. My fears are superstitious and personal. At a very young age, I realized the “this could happen to you” narrative the news media spurts out in the wake of freak tragedy was designed to harness anxiety and keep up ratings.

With this reasoning, it wouldn’t make much sense for me to fear an airplane. But there is nothing, and I mean nothing, more terrifying than the ascent of an aircraft. Specifically, any Boeing model whose name starts with a seven. Seated and locked in, with no possibility of escape; it is puzzling, fearful, nail-biting. It seems against the laws of nature that such a beast—filled with passengers, and cargo, and frozen tilapia cutlets in tin foil—could lift off the ground and stay off the ground, for hours at a time. When the second half (my half) of the plane lifts from the ground, my stomach churns in steady motion until houses are nothing but specks under clouded mist, and I’ve been impressed by the airline’s extensive offerings of Spike Jonze films.

There is a great deal of trust in my abiding to my seat and silence and sanity during take off. I suppose this is true for everyone. The collective conviction of passengers on the plane prevents uprising and meltdowns in the seconds before departure. It keeps the planes operating on schedule. It maintains order in the world. I, along with everyone else, must trust that my plane will lift and fly and land safely, and that science is truth, even when I’ve just written a paper for philosophy concerning the nonexistence of truths.

I trusted an airplane this past weekend on a trip to my cousin’s wedding. We lifted, and flew, and landed safely.* Trust is very powerful.

*Do note, my luggage was left behind. ♦