Have you flown?
You may have been inside a plane like this, but that is not flying.
You may have been inside a plane like this, but that is not flying. You were a passenger. You were transported. You were as cabin crew would say; a piece of self-loading freight.
Flying is altogether different.
Flying is you at the controls.
Power to idle. Straight and level. Pull back, back, back on the flight column. Keep pulling back and the speed drops off. Keep the back pressure on the column. The plane slows and slows. An eerie quietness and the wings stutter, the control column needs to be moved a lot more left and right than normal due to the low spend. Then the nose drops. The plane has stalled. Down you go. You ram the right rudder peddle down hard and the plane enters a spin. As it spins you turn the aileron to the left. Now the spin is aggravated. It spins quite violently.
Put the control column back to centre. Full left rudder to stop the spin. Now pull back hard on the column to get out of the dive. You feel your weight pushing you into the seat as the G-Force acts as it does. That is flying.
We can skate, speeding past all the slow-coaches on the rink chasing a friend. I could list a hundred or more exciting things taken to their natural limits. Pushing the boundaries. Flying a plane oneself is true living compared to sitting in a cramped seat on a commercial flight. You are being carried rather than being a master of your own destiny.
One can be a master of one’s own destiny too in the field of thought. We can explore inside us. We can explore the possibilities and challenge common beliefs. All of which is akin to an aggravated spin in an aeroplane. So many worlds that we don’t get to see. So many experiences that elude us. So many conversations that we failed to grasp. Some think they have done things, but they only dabbled. Some think things are so, but don’t see the goings on underneath. Passengers rather than pilots.
© IgnoranceParadox 2003 - 2025
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