I am surrounded by strangers, unimpressed and bored on this pretty uneventful flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles. It’s a pretty usual mix of people .. some snoring, some flicking through the movie collection, some making plans and some that are just furious about how the plane doesn’t have wifi, restless for their fix. It’s a pretty mundane flight with the usual script, with rare occasional interruptions by some sick kid and the struggling parents. Pretty ordinary stuff.
When the steward brought me the coffee I asked for, I started thinking about this pretty routine boring flight a little. This 15 hour trip between the 2 opposite sides of worlds is roughly 12,500 km. At an altitude of 12,000 meters, there isn’t much oxygen to breathe for a human. The temperature is a ridiculous -57C. There is no reason for a human to be alive and healthy up there, all the measurements point to an unfavourable environment for life. Yet, here I am with the other 500 people sitting comfortably sipping on my coffee while typing on my laptop. In a little while, I will magically appear on the other side of the world floating over ridiculous amounts of water.
Amid this entirely unamazing situation, some might start thinking about all the things that are required to make all of this possible. They might notice that this completely mundane situation is made possible by quite a few people in the background, coming together like a well-oiled machine to make this all happen. In all honesty, there is absolutely nothing mundane or boring about a human flying halfway across the world in a tin can at 12,000 meters… it’s truly magical! Yet, nobody will get up to clap for the pilots, the flight crew and all the other people that made this trip possible for 500 people, safely over a giant ocean. Yet nobody will think and quietly thank the underpaid ground staff working to make sure that all the nuts and bolts of the plane were in the right place and it was worthy of making this long trip riding on nothing but air. We will go out, pick up our luggage and walk-out of the airport without thinking about the people that make sure our bags get to the right place for us to pick up.
We all love and aspire to be heroes, the doers of extraordinary things. We want to be the ones that save the day, change the world, make shit happen. We want to live exciting lives that aren’t boring, we admire and appreciate people that are not-boring. We seek livers of extraordinary lives, who aren’t mundane, who don’t live through scripted days, who are anything but routine. We shun the boring, the usual, the normal. We are pretty happy to be labelled crazy, wild, adventurous, rebellious, exciting, unpredictable, spontaneous and so on.
We want to be amazed all the time yet our lives are made possible by all those unamazing people. The cleaners making sure our beautiful towns stay beautiful by cleaning up the vomit and broken glass from the streets. The bus drivers that get up every morning, prepared for angry stares from random strangers. The people who make sure every time you turn on the light switch, it has power. The ones who ensure that we get the clean water we all take for granted. The train drivers that carry thousands of people every day from one place to another. The people who make sure that the traffic signals on the road actually work as they are supposed to. The people who paint the lines on our roads to help us drive safely. The single moms that work 2 jobs to make sure her kids get the Christmas present they asked for. The unappreciated teachers that we trust our kids. The people who maintain the bridges that we cross every day without giving it another thought. The underpaid workers making the toys that bring so much pleasure to our kids.
The world is filled with these unamazing, boring people, without whom nothing amazing would be possible. I thank those people under my breath every day for invisibly making my life better. They are the unappreciated drummers in the symphony of life making sure the melody doesn’t fall apart. All you unamazing people out there, I salute you for getting out of bed every morning, just to be never thanked for what you make possible … you are truly amazing!
