Attribution: Photo by Ava Tyler on Unsplash
By Geoff Carter
We recently took a week-long trip to Puerto Vallarta, one of our all-time favorite vacation destinations. We booked an early, a very early, an ungodly early, flight. Our Uber driver got us to the airport about 3:30 am—partly because we always try to follow airport guidelines—but partly because (I suspect) we’re getting older. After we got to the ticket counter and made our way through security, we hunkered down in the waiting area by the gate an hour and a half early. As the time crawled by, more and more passengers began showing up.
Couples, families, and singles; young, middle-aged, and old; rich, poor, and in-between, excited or in a daze, they all showed up, some—like us—bright and early—a little haggard perhaps, while others hustled to the gate just in the nick of time.
Maybe because it was early or because everyone was glued to their devices, but nobody was talking much, and that’s the way it always seems to be at the airport—any airport. People who don’t know each other (and who don’t seem to want to know each other) but who must gather to travel, to leave home, or to get back home, for some reason don’t seem inclined to communicate. I’m not sure exactly why.
Even though we had gathered to begin a journey, to go to the same place on the same plane at the same time, almost no one spoke or even made eye contact. We obviously had one big thing in common, but—with a few exceptions—most of us kept to ourselves. Many were glued to their phones, checking flight times, the weather, playing games, texting, or God knows what else.
One youngish woman sat next to us and started a robust conversation over her phone. Without a shred of self-consciousness, she shared confidences with whoever was on the other end of the line—along with the hundred or so of us at Gate A34. She seemed unaware of anything but her conversation. She was in a bubble, on a cloud, but she wasn’t that different. All of us, to one degree or another, were bubbled up, too.
Even when boarding started and everyone got into line according to (theoretically at least) group numbers, we huddled together like sheep entering their pen. There was very little eye contact and almost no interactions. While we were barely inclined to acknowledge each other as humans, we still—instinctively—exhibited the herd mentality; the animal instinct to stay together had been transposed from the barnyard to the airport. Our animal sides knew what to do–we stayed low risk and went where we were told.
There were a few instances of genuine, almost accidental interaction. The guy sitting next to my wife zonked out the minute we were airborne and almost immediately began snoring like a buzzsaw. It lasted for the next three hours. Nobody in the vicinity wanted to shake or poke the guy, so we sat quietly and let him sleep. A few people giggled and whispered conversations about him, but for the most part, passengers plugged in their ear buds or played games or watched films on their smartphones. They stayed in their bubbles—on their clouds.
When that flight ran late, some of us had to hustle to make our connections. We immediately got on our phones, used our apps to find the routes to our new gates and our ETAs. A few of our fellow passengers actually spoke to us (perhaps hoping for compassion in that Darwinian rush to the door), sharing their anxieties before we parted ways to our respective flights. They were the first ones out of their seats to grab their things from the overhead compartment—not that that ever does any good. No one ever gets to the head of the line that way.
After we (barely) made our connection and I settled back into my seat, I took a look at our new set of fellow travelers—pretty much of another mixed bag. We were all going to Puerto Vallarta, a beautiful seaside resort town to (I presumed) go on vacation, but you wouldn’t know it. There were people of every age, ethnicity, and—judging from appearances—economic status, but we never acknowledged our one commonality—our destination.
I prefer the window seat when I fly. That’s my bubble. I love to get that birds-eye view of the world, to see the majesty and bleakness of the desert and the sheer magnificence of the mountains stretching far below. At that height, the temperature outside my window is between -40- and -70-degrees Fahrenheit. It can be—to say the least—a precarious situation. I find it remarkable that some people, like the guy sitting next to my wife, could sleep through this experience.
Maybe I’m a little naïve, but I always get a little excited about flying, and it’s not because of the novelty of the experience. I’ve flown at least one hundred times in my life, but I still marvel at the technology that makes it possible. From the aspect of an all-too-fragile metal tube zooming at 600 miles an hour 30,000 feet about the earth, I can see the world from what I imagine to be the balcony of the gods—a cloud’s eye view.
There are more than a few things I should probably still feel wonder about: the beautifully muted tones of a sunset, the intricate mechanics of a butterfly’s flight, or the grandeur of a clear and starry night, but I, like my fellow sky riders, often find myself caught up in my own affairs and concerns, wrapped up in the bubble wrap of my selfish needs.
The failures to appreciate the simple beauties and marvels of our immediate surroundings, like flight, not only deprives us any sort of sense of connection to the natural world but foreshortens our own capacity to immerse ourselves into a world outside the nine-inch screen we hold in our hands.
After we landed and lined up to go through customs, the people from our flight began to loosen up. We talked about Puerto Vallarta, the dos and don’ts of getting through the terminal, and the best way to get a taxi. We became more social, more human.
I began to wonder if it was the anxiety of travel that had closed us off from each other, and why the experience of being shepherded through security lines, boarding procedures, and customs lines had awakened a herd docility inside of us. Why did we exhibit a safety in numbers mentality while waiting to board or get through security or be processed by customs?
On some deep biological level, are we afraid of being picked off from the herd, from being excluded or left behind—cut from the herd? That fear is neither logical—not that fear usually is—nor realistic. Everyone knows they’re going to be able to get on that plane unless something extraordinary happens, yet we still act as if we’re all trying to on the Titanic’s last lifeboat.
Flying can be an exhilarating experience. So can having a good conversation or making a new friend. I don’t know if it’s possible to erase or mitigate the group anxiety of air travel, but, for myself, I will always ask for the window seat and marvel at the wonder of modern flight. I feel as if I’m on cloud nine—and I wouldn’t mind talking about it.