On Flying

I'm always a bit nervous when I get on a plane. It's not that I don't know that the danger of dying in a crash is really small, or that the plane can withstand even lightning, but it's always the what-ifs that get me. As much as I want to trust in the statistics, I can't, because I'm not a statistic and I cannot be a statistic because a statistic is something large and general, not small and unique. It only masquerades as reality when it is really the exceptions-to-the-rule that dominate the world.

I already know one person who has been in a plane crash. Granted, it was my ninth grade English teacher and that the plane was a small Cessna, but still, knowing one person already demolishes that statistic which likes to assure me of my immortality.

This time, flying home, I tried to think why I was so fearful every time the plane hit turbulence.

Like a Freudian, I thought maybe it had to do with some traumatic experience now buried deep in my subconscious. I do remember, with particular vividness when I was much younger, being scared to death because of extreme turbulence. We must have dropped at least 30 feet, enough to make the entire cabin go "whooooaa". I had looked to my father to my left with full fear, but he dismissed it confident as he was in a metallic machine climbing precariously into the air on nothing but the physical laws (which have no tangible reality and so are rarely comforting).

or perhaps, once on a ride to Alaska in very bad weather, I remember a large African-American lady with her daughter behind me who was perspiring and crossing herself madly, her halting "Our Fathers" dotted with "Oh Lord, Oh Lord!" Her daughter was remarkably unsympathetic; I held her hand until we finally landed.

I noticed I was much calmer, however, when I got a clear view of the ground. When I saw the ground, I was on the ground. The gusts that swelled against the plane seemed less likely to overturn the ship when I saw the ground far below, reminding me that though I might die on the plane, I might also live as the exception to the rule.

When I looked at something else though, the fear returned. The wing, or the distortion of the plane frame during turbulence, or a turn too steep, or a sudden quiet from the engine, or even faulty seats, static-y screene, or just plain bad company.

You might think that it's pretty juvenile, this fear of flying. I think so too, but if there is one thing that it is good, it constantly reminds me that I am indeed living and not simply taking up space. It's funny too, because I have traveled often already, and I should be used to it.

One humorous thing about flying is that whenever the captain turns on the seatbelt warning, the turbulence stops, and whenever he turns it off, it begins again.