[disclaimer: what you are about to read is offensive. it is one pilot's personal account of life in and above some of the craziest places in the world.

long ago i derailed myself from the respectable airline track that most pilots aspire to. instead i chose adventure: different airplanes, jobs, and countries. i wanted to serve some of the poorest downtrodden souls on the forgotten corners of a planet. you will read about refugees who have nothing and live in war zones; victims of rape and senseless rebel violence. people who are basically being kept alive and dependent by western 'aid' while we extract their countries' resources.

i understand that it all may be a tad uncomfortable. hell, i hope it twists your entrails. that's the whole point of writing it down and releasing it into the wild. awareness, the seed of potential change.

a note on literary style: many ex-patriates and aid workers acquire an extra-dry sarcastic sexually-twisted gallows-type humor in the field. it is one of the things that helps you get through the day and cope with the madness of the job. an evolutionary adaptation, if you will. and i will.

i hope you can differentiate the serious from the tongue-in-cheek ironic. i want you to be offended by what is happening in the world, rather than how i paint it.

and if all of that makes you queasy, you are probably not tall enough for this ride.

thanks for reading! -p]

Monday, August 22, 2011

always wishing you were somewhere else

so our company has lost our contract, and for the third time in three years i will be out of a job.

it's the same story as always: everything coming unravelled due to the normal mind-numbing managerial incompetence. and as usual, it's those at the tip of the spear, the guys in the field, the ones who have been getting the job done every day who suffer. the middle-manager types who screw it all up for everyone end up getting a sweet bonus, and sometimes a promotion.

whatever.

mediocrity. rise above it. things change, you have to roll with it. be adaptable. all that.


simplify, simplify, said henry.

i've decided that i need more mountains, more music, and more malted beverages in my life. more love; more giving.

i need less money, less obligations, less expectations, less stuff.

maybe it's time to take a break from wiggling sticks for werk. so the next adventure. what will it be? some of the things i'm kicking around in my upper-middle-class privileged brain:

trekking in nepal. diving in thailand. grad school. becoming a mechanic. spending a winter skiing in the french alps. disappearing into the canyonlands, hiking and rock climbing and living in the back of my truck on pizza and beer. learning portuguese in brazil. taking a 14' self-bailer and boating down what's left of the west's wild and scenic rivers.

maybe all of the above.


******


i head down to one of my favorite rich mzungu restaurants; a pizzeria on the beach. the waiter already knows what i want. a cold tasty is opened and its sweet nectar is gliding down my gullet before i know it. i plug in the earbuds and let myself melt into a cathedral of sound. sonic bliss.

a strong breeze is coming in off the lake; it's blowing away umbrellas and tablecloths and messing up women's hairdos and scattering plastic chairs like bowling pins. i anchor down and ride it out; wanting the experience for what it is. no sugar added.

the birds, my fellow aviators, are fighting the headwind by dropping down low, riding the ridges of air just above the waves, getting blasted by the spray coming off the whitecaps, their wings pumping hard and true. eeking out a slow and steady progress. some metaphor there.

why do they do it?

why not?

that's what i need. this secret knowledge of how to sail; of knowing how to harness life in all of its bittersweet injustice. absorb all the bad, and with the magic of an alchemist, emerge with something extraordinary.


it may not all work out how you thought it would. but all that seems important is having the courage to move on.
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