It’s My Aeroplane . . . Spiked with Pain

Henri Nouwen said good writing is not the recording of preconceived thought, but a journey all its own. “How do I know what to write until I see what I say?” Can’t remember who said that, but I love it.

I’ve been on airplanes lately for work, and today, just two hours ago, I noticed that I often have thoughts of mortality as the plane taxis to the runway. I say a quick prayer for safety as if putting on a talisman. I guess all this is natural, even though many more people die of car accidents. My consideration of my mortality usually involves questions to myself like, “Well, so what if I died? Have I done enough in life? Could I die in peace?” My own answer to these ridiculous questions usually goes something like, “No. Not really. I can’t believe how much time I’ve wasted the past couple of days.”

Then I imagine God showing me a picture that represents my life. The picture should be colored in, but the black-and-white parts represent time I wasted, and only 30 percent of the picture is in color. It’s a picture of what was versus what should have been. I don’t know what to make of such thoughts and images, except that they are undoubtedly born of a neurotic mix of arrogance and self-disparagement.

The fact is we will never have done enough to die in peace, and perhaps this is a hint that we are not finally mortal after all. Life goes on and on, and each satisfying conclusion opens a new door. If we look forward to cessation, we are looking forward to the wrong thing. New beginnings are what lie ahead. That's my hope, anyway.

A woman just walked by with a tight black shirt with a statement in big white letters that read “That’s HOT!” Paris Hilton’s moronic maxim. It’s hard to believe there are people in the world who are shallow enough to wear that in public. That’s my first thought. My second is, how is it that she finds meaning in wearing this? Surely she does, which is why she’s wearing it, but how? I don’t get it. Maybe it’s a mask, a defense, a deliberate offense against her parents or authority in general. Maybe it’s her way of yelling at the world. All conjecture, of course, but at least I’ve managed to make a little sense of it for myself.