On the Fragility of Life and the Handling of Avertable Disasters
If you know me at all, you know I love flying. Planes, airports, departure boards, security lines, forced smiles — the whole 9 yards. However, something I don’t talk about very much is the completely cold wave of fear the fills me before every takeoff. I try to hide it with a fake smile, but my eyes show my true feelings.
Flying — while being the safest way you can travel our country, and the world — does nothing to attempt to shield you from the risks. In fact, per FAA regulations, every flight begins with about 5 minutes dedicated to what to do when the shit hits the fan. While many airlines, including my beloved Virgin America, do their best to bring a smile to your face during these few reflective minutes, it is utterly clear the many ways this flight might be the last few minutes of your life. Whether it ends in a 35k foot free-fall back to earth or in a series of unfortunate events set in motion when a less reliable airline left a part on the runway right before your plane takes off… it’s all conspicuously possible.
This might be why so many people are scared of flying, and choose to drive — which is, statistically, far riskier. However, when you drive, your car doesn’t explain how to exit the vehicle if it becomes engulfed in flames.
Every time I fly, I am reminded, almost constantly, of the fragility of my life and the lives of those around me. I am reminded about how easily our lives can end because of a miscalculation or a misplaced bird. I am reminded about the hundreds of thousands who die everyday around the world, and the reminder that one day, I too will die. Everyone is going to die one day. If this is something you’d rather not think about, just find solace in the knowledge that one day, there won’t be any humans to even remember that we existed in the first place. The utter series of coincidences that occurred to bring us to this very moment, are just that, coincidences. Luck. Chance.
I don’t want to be another voice talking about how we shouldn’t politicize today’s events, because we should. I don’t want to talk about the absolutely necessary gun control reform we need. Nor do I want to shout about how the NRA is a terrorist organization, which it is. (Rights to kill can be repealed for a reason.)
Together, as a nation and as a species, we have this amazing chance to reflect on how we want to proceed. We can, like most Americans, grieve for others and shake our heads at our own inability to grapple with how it could have been us that dropped out of the sky, or us that were gunned down. We can keep driving our cars, thinking that car accidents are just a fact of life.
Or, we can — together — take apart every second that happened prior to the events today. Objectively analyze them, and then, most importantly, make changes to how we live our lives. We can, just like the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) does for every aviation accident, determine that one accident is too many, and make the difficult changes. We can make changes to the living document that is our constitution.
Right now, it seems we have decided that gun violence is just a fact of life. However, I don’t believe that it is just a fact of life — that we can’t do better. This is something, we — together as a nation — have the ability to change.
I hope we can choose to do so. And soon.
“It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.”
― Daniel Handler
