Bro, I'm so High Right Now

Ha-ha please tell me you get that the title is just a joke. I am physically high right now because I'm in an airplane, not whatever else you happened to think I was talking about! Besides, I prefer to get high on life :/ 

It always befuddles me that people would rather sit in the aisle than the window seat in airplanes. The smile-inducing speed and the world displayed outside unfolds itself like a red carpet from the window seat. To put it very simply, its freaking COOL. Clearly it is the better choice. Why would you waste your time staring at a dingy TV screen to watch a movie you could see when your feet are planted on solid ground instead of on the inside of a giant metal bird hurtling through the atmosphere at speeds close to 600 mph? I mean technically I’m wasting every precious second of the view to write this journal but hey, I had some thoughts I thought would be worth sharing.

I was thinking about how to describe the feeling of awe that I think stems from the pure vastness of the planet to someone who wouldn’t have the opportunity to fly in an airplane, and I really don’t think that its possible unless I could compare it to the ocean. If someone hadn’t had the pleasure of observing the vast and magical ocean from any sort of vantage point, they might just be fresh out of luck. Speaking of people who haven’t had the opportunity to travel/see things brings me to another reason the window seat is objectively the best place to sit: I feel that its a responsibility to take advantage of the rare opportunities given to me to observe things that so many others can’t in order to show gratitude. There are probably at least a million kids around the world who dream of being pilots their wholes lives and go to sleep thinking about what it would like to be among the clouds. I would feel like a brat if I plonked myself in the aisle seat because it was “closer to the bathroom” or “more convenient” or “had more leg room.”

So, for my own benefit as a writer, and for all the people who may not have had the chance to fly in an airplane, here is my best description of the sky, as it looks throughout my flight, in the funkiest terms I can think of (cause I know descriptive passages where the clouds are described as cotton balls and cars are compared to ants are cliche to the max). 

A silvery tingle of excitement wiggled from the crown of my head to the bottom of my spine. I love when it feels like your head and shoulders are disconnecting from the rest of your body from pure weightlessness and you’re slightly scared for your life! I already had a speed smile and a racing heart from the plane taking off. And, as we ascended into the clouds, I noticed the distinct differences between all the structures we have saddled the earth with. They look like insignificant toys from up here. First you have the developed complexes of houses that look like a mixture of geometric Native American patterns and minute lego blocks lined up in spindly patterns. You never realize the extent to which each housing complex is the result of a cookie-cutter design, picked up and stamped on the earth over and over. When you’re driving through them they seem natural, with windy roads and hills, but when you fly over them you realize how calculated they are. Everything seems so small that I feel clumsy just looking at them; I mean I feel like I could crush a whole neighborhood with the fingertip of my pinky! Next I noticed several enormous bodies of water, which were amoebas swaying gently back and forth in a gentle ocean current, but frozen on the spot. The farm land was super interesting. It definitely wasn’t as sharply defined or geometric as the housing developments. The patches were more like magazine cut outs, each with different colors and shapes, blurred together like a mosaic of melting green skittles. The patches of farm land seemed to hug each other in a way that meant they were all coexisting sentient beings, whereas the houses were all obedient cells, who weren’t really working together because none of them had a mind of their own. I could only personify the houses while looking at them as a whole picture. Now take all three of these ideas and imagine them strung out to infinity, until they disappear into the hazy horizon. Its shiver-inducing just from pure magnitude! Perhaps it is inaccurate to personify the housing developments as impersonal and robotic and the lakes and farmland as natural, happy-go-lucky things. I do realize that there is a huge problem with the way we farm animals with tons of antibiotics, etc. Farms definitely aren't always good for the environment. CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) are also pretty fricked up, and there is tons of debate over the most efficient and/or sustainable farming practices. So, please take my words for what they are, along with this acknowledgment.

I like to think about the earth as her own being (which is the beginnings of a super interesting concept called the Gaia Hypothesis. Definitely check it out!). In keeping with this idea, I thought about all the structures built onto the planet as scars on the earth’s skin. And let me tell ya, humans are the worst case of facial acne ever. The thing that got me thinking about this was a rock quarry I saw, that took the deepest and widest straight chunk out of the earth I have seen, and all I could think of was “Ow.”

There was this lovely moment when the nose of the plane finally battled its way through the lowest level of clouds, which dared not to go lower than the bottom shelf of the atmosphere. The clouds scuttled along the top of this invisible barrier like water bugs on a pond. The clouds then proceeded to dissuade me from describing them as anything else other than chunky piles of cottage cheese divided into dollops and spread in an endless buffet line. The sky was doing the most beautiful ombre thing. The center of the sky was borderline navy, in the most regal way possible, fading gradually into the white of the clouds in a way that suggested that the clouds were giving off a faint luminous glow. Finally the clouds joined together into a soothing wool blanket that covered every square inch of the sleeping planet. “Calm down earth, it'll all be gucci,” the clouds said.

Not only are the views from (the six lol get it cause…? yeah anyways.) way up here in the big ole sky absolutely fantastic, 10/10 would recommend, I feel like they can give a great perspective on life! I thought about how tiny a building looked from way up here, and this was right after we took off, mind you. I just can’t imagine having a daily life where the majority of my time would be spent in one little building like that one. From a plane, I can see not only the whole building as about the size of a grain of rice, but the whole city. I can see the shapes of lakes and the beauty of a highway. How puny is that potential desk-job person sitting at that diminutive desk, looking at a microscopic monitor,  in a rat-hole room, in a heinous hallway of that b-small building (went a bit overboard on the alliteration there, my b)? In case you’re not getting my point, the desk-job person in my description is really freaking small. I think about my poor little brain being only occupied by the fact that I have lots of emails and grown-up things to do, in my small world which is encompas sed in an approximately 10 mile radius, and forgetting that there is probably at least one person sitting up in a plane looking down on my world, passing by in .2 seconds and thinking, “Holy moly everything looks so small!” I think looking at things from the perspective of a plane can help unchain that poor little mind from getting so bogged down in, not only her own personal skull-sized universe (David Foster Wallace talked about a similar concept in his speech, This is Water), but also the nitty-gritty grind of daily life. Cause life is cool and beautiful. Its not supposed to be a living hell where you struggle to get through every day. Unchaining the mind and thinking about things like you’re super fly like an airplane (yes that was a pun) might help remind you that things are bigger than the stresses of daily life. When you think big picture, it makes those metaphorical mountains you’ve been climbing seem like mole hills. Life's not so bad. Cue Carrie Underwood’s So Small.

Ok, so we have established that size matters (lol ;). But like actually, size is really important when you’re a human who thinks only from your own perspective who needs to be reminded that the earth and its atmosphere are slightly humongous. Maybe we don’t all have that concept down pat, but hey, I do my best to incorporate into daily life. But then there are THE CLOUDS: endlessly interesting and ever-changing. I mean those cottage cheese clouds when from wool blanket to desert landscape to obliterator-of-everything in less than 2 hours, man! It was incredible! The clouds got me thinking about what its like to see something off in the distance that seems really far away, but then suddenly be in the midst of it in no time. Thinking about a year seems like an eternity, and I often have these dreamy, uncertain ideas of what I’ll be doing when I think ahead. I love to live in the moment in a way that makes me think of the future as this huge deal that is so far away. For example, for my entire senior year of high school, everyone (including me) hypes up this huge deal called college. I mean, you spend the majority of 6 months crafting applications, stressing, doubting yourself, anxiously awaiting acceptance letters, agonizing over the whole decision, then talking about who is going where, writing “Good luck at (insert college here) next year! I’ll miss you!” in year books, and attempting to enjoy senior year. And then when you spend the summer lounging around or working or going to camp or what-have-you, you start thinking, Man, move-in day is never gonna get here! And without fail, before you know it, and before you’re ready, you are flung into something you spent a whole year thinking you were prepared for. Hey, maybe this doesn’t apply to you though, and thats totally cool! Keep doing your thing! But I feel like this is pretty relatable in terms of high school students, or any other transition in your life you may be going through, and you know what? Its a lot like looking at the clouds! Clouds can seem really far away; they can look like something they aren’t, change really quickly, and surround you or spring upon you in no time, just like your future. I’m not really sure I have a nugget of wisdom for you guys here, but I just thought it was a cool comparison to draw (I love comparisons if you can’t tell). Well, ok, I guess I would say make sure you keep your chin up and scan those clouds so you’re not enveloped by them by surprise. But make sure you understand that the clouds change really quickly and unpredictably, so try not to get too caught up in what you think the clouds are supposed to look like, or “Eek that looks like a storm!” Be as flexible as the wind and blow your future away! It can be a really cool to finally do that thing you imagined doing so many times. Fulfill those dreams! YGG! I hope that I don’t sound preach-y, or like I’m above any of you because I am totally the queen of kingdom Future-which-Suddenly-Became-the-Present-Oh-Shit-I’m-Unprepared. I’m not saying any of this stuff because I’m so old and wise, but because I’m going through this huge soup-y mess of life just like you, and these are some of my motivational observations/thoughts I’d thought I’d share.

Alright I have one more future/cloud comparison thats just too good to pass up! At one point in the flight, I looked out the window and saw what was probably the least aesthetically pleasing view of the flight: pure white. The cloud we were flying through was so thick that all I could see was the tip of the wing and a colonial woman sitting out there churning butter (JK obviously and please watch the airplane scene from bridesmaids if you haven’t. Civil Rights. Its the 90s. Also, fun fact: that entire scene was almost all improv!). But seriously, I could not see a thing. The visibility was so close to zero feet that it reminded me of moments when I just admit to myself I haven’t the slightest clue what I’m doing, and so I give a huge, dumb smile to that third-person camera I always imagine is filming my life. Sometimes it can be a relief to admit that you have no idea what you’re doing! I just had a moment where I thought to myself, The pilots must be shitting themselves. But then I continued to contemplate this, and I’m sure it probably happens to pilots all the time. I mean, it happens as often as there are cloudy days, which is fairly frequently - at least where I’m from. The pilot is probably trained to land planes in the foggiest of fogs. If he or she panicked every time they lost visibility flying would be a stressful experience indeed. What I’m trying to say, perhaps not so subtly, is that its a-okay to not know where you are flying your plane/going in life sometimes! Freaking out is probably the worst thing you can do, and maybe it seems like every other pilot knows exactly where she is flying her plane, but I guarantee you not everyone does. I’m not saying just sit back and hope that your plane lands itself, but freaking out over things that you can’t control is just plane unproductive. You can fill your time by doing your best to learn about yourself, being attentive to your environment, and catching any breaks in the clouds that you can, and I promise you, you will be alright. Land that plane! I know you can! And when you land that plane and spend some time on the ground, take off again and jump into the next thing that absolutely scares the shit out of you :) That’s all for now!

PS: if you enjoyed the part about “unchaining” your mind, and thinking about things from the perspective of a plane, you might really enjoy looking into Baruch Spinoza’s concept of sub specie aeternitatis. Shoutout to Mr. Post, my English and Philosophy teacher of two years, for introducing/teaching Spinoza’s philosophy so well that I am recommending it to other people!

PPS: My teammates are begging me for a shoutout in my blog so I guess I will entertain their requests, *sighs.* JK I am happy to shout them out and let you all know how cool they are! Shout out to Daria for being an amazing (most of the time) roommate and for tolerating my random, deep questions about what a soul even is. Shoutout Paige for being a fun plane buddy and for staying weird and keeping me smiling. Shoutout to Krissi for being so sweet and telling me that I had a good game, after every game without fail. Love em to death :) Deuces!