Flying, A Metaphor For Life
Who on earth hasn’t at least once, wanted to escape the time, place or situation that they’ve been immersed in? (Please use the comment button below). I dare say no one, but that’s based on my limited personal observations. Every single person I’ve ever known has struggled with serious issues at least once.
From the thousands of patients I’ve treated over the years, to the guy I saw yesterday when he rudely cut off a fellow driver, not one of those people was able to hide their need or desire for help. The underlying sources of these challenges might range from minor skirmishes at the morning’s breakfast table to endless nightmares that replay every night.
Whether we’re working to accumulate more for ourselves today or working toward a better world for generations to come, periodic escapes are sometimes just fitting and proper.
Things like a walk in the local park, a bike ride through the woods, a leisurely stroll on the beach, hunkering down with a good book, or vacations come to mind and they’re all good. Unfortunately, drugs can also come to mind for those whose tanks are running on empty. We all have our go-tos.
In Flies Aerie to the Rescue
For as long as I can remember, my reprieve from the here and now involved flight. Whether it was lying on my back as I watched birds soar near cloud base above or launching dollar store balsa wood airplanes off of a nearby hill, those simple activities would quiet my hyperactive and troubled mind.
My father, a Navy pilot, and I bonded over time in the air, and for my fifteenth birthday he surprised me with my first official flying lesson. Between delivering tens of thousands of newspapers and mowing dozens of lawns over the next three years, I gave him the privilege of keeping his promise - to pay for my last lesson, too. That was my check ride as a Private Pilot.
My underlying goal was to fly for the United States Air Force, but that dream was promptly shot down by a solitary pair of glasses. And the rest is history, or more accurately, not history.
BUT all was not lost!
Sitting down in one’s own flying machine has always been the endeavor of the wealthy. Be it the gifted Wright brothers: bike designers and entrepreneurs from Dayton, Ohio, Amelia Earhart from Kansas, or Mark VanLaeys from a humble suburb of Philadelphia, we all spent substantial amounts of money to fund our addictions.
Where there’s a will there’s a way and a metaphor for LIFE
The last hundred hours of my flying have been beneath aluminum tubing and Dacron - the “poor-man’s” alternative to heavy metal. An add-on bonus to flying light is the clarity of vision that my flying machine affords. There are no filters between my glasses and the world beyond . . . .
Call it my Zen, call it my “Happy Place,” either way, it’s quality time.
To be human is to struggle. To be our healthiest is to maintain balance. And that balance includes a periodic escape from those struggles.
I love this post, Mark. And I am quite envious that you are able to fly!
I remember when I was quite small, I begged my mother to buy me a package of the red feathers. I got some glue and was determined to make my own wings. (Must have read about Icarus in school.) I had (literal) dreams of running down the sidewalk and taking off.
Just recently, I was thinking how wonderful it would be to go hang gliding or to learn to fly a glider. Guess that will remain a dream for me, but it's great to live vicariously through your post!
Mark, This is so timely! My flight enthusiast just turned 15, and a few days earlier he got his Civil Air Patrol cadet pins. Fifteen is a good age for getting airborne. As in your family, father and son share this love of flight. If you have a local CAP squadron, they could possibly use you and let you fly a 3-seater! Enjoy the fall colors up there.