I’m on my flight, and I accidentally see there are 1:21 minutes left.
I’m disappointed.
My second flight of the day. The first was eight hours. Then a three hour layover, not including an additional hour delay.
Yet five hours into this one, I’m disappointed it’s almost over.
My honest gut reaction.
Why?
Because I refuse to even think about the time; and so, trapped inside a metal cylinder in the sky, I transcend it. I live the experience the way I should hope to live my life.
I let myself go. Despite only two hours of sleep, I consider striking up a conversation with the man next to me. It would be hard enough in my native tongue; do I have the energy to make any sense in my second one? Eight hours later, we’ve hardly stopped talking, and I’ve met four of the truest adventurers I’ve encountered in my entire life. In their early seventies, they've traveled to almost as many countries as years they've walked the Earth. Yet unlike so many self-proclaimed globetrotters who've reduced travel to yet another form of consumption, they're unassuming enthusiasts who ship their vans ahead of them and drive when they get there. All over Africa. And Latin America. There still is an unbeaten path, and six months a year they take it. I feel like an amateur.
On the next flight, I explore my new medium. Video feels second nature, and I’m inspired by its potential. When my eyes hurt, I watch someone else’s video about an eccentric 90-plus-year-old fashionista who proves to be brilliant, witty, and wise. Even more inspired, I’m also touched. I want to live more. I want to be more.
My flights in the air how I should spend my days on the ground. So engrossed in the moment as to be neither distracted nor dissuaded by time. Learning. Creating. Opening myself to the experiences and perspectives of others, to opportunities they might not only afford but inspire me to make for myself.
With only 1:21 minutes left, reluctantly accepting that the journey, like my month in Barcelona, has nearly come to its end. Excited and ready to wrap up others long underway. Curious about those waiting in the wings, limitations I hope they’ll push me to rise above.
Plane rides like life.
What you make of them.