Christopher Schaberg and Mark Yakich (Editors): Airplane Reading

I don’t enjoy flying. The wide range of emotions offered whilst taking off and zipping through the air is a volatile mix of fear, anxiety, dread, boredom, disbelief, and suspicion of every operating system the plane uses. A bump of turbulence ignites my survival instinct that instructs me to grab the nearest object or person and cling to it/them for dear life. When the plane begins its descent a wave of euphoria, hardly felt in my day to day life, cleanses me. I’m released from the funk I’ve been locked in for the past few hours and by the time I’m through customs the ordeal is virtually forgotten. I’ll live to fly again. Oddly enough, what I do enjoy about flying is being in an airport. Glass and concrete Mecca’s of continuous human flow; a conduit of a shared experience that so utterly depends on perspective. There are not many places in the world where so many humans of varied backgrounds, ethnicity, religion, or class convene in one place and do it in peaceful and cooperative terms. Their day to day lives hardly ever untwine; but for a few hours they are united in flight and destination. They may even sit side by side whilst flying and connect with one another. Could the Earth’s socio-political issues be dealt with inside a bustling airport?