Life is an Airport

Written by Sebastyne Young Tuesday, 20 July 2010 21:06

Sebastyne Young is the author of Wait Until You're Old and Alone - Thoughts about being Childless by Choice.
 
When explaining my somewhat unusual way of thinking of things I often use an airport analogy. If you have made a trip between continents, you may have had to stay on airports waiting for a connecting flight for hours on hours. This is what I think life is like.

We are born with the incoming flight. We are then stuck on the airport and we can't do anything to make the flight leave faster or do anything of real consequence on the airport. We can shop at the tax free and try to sleep and pass time. Clearly, we have no purpose on the airport other than stay out of people's way - or to entertain them or try to make them comfortable during their stay. We can do some charity work and buy pillows from the tax free shops and give them out to our fellow-waiters. Some enjoy the airport time so much, that they insist on delaying other people's flights as much as possible thinking they are doing them a big favour! Sometimes a passenger manages to book an earlier flight, but these people go through a lot of trouble to get your flight changed back.

If you are travelling alone, you will be bored to death. You may solve the problem by entertaining other people or maybe be entertained by others - to an extent at least. Or you could write some notes pass them to others or leave them behind for someone else to read and pass their time on.

Imagine the airport was constantly repeating advertisements to this effect: "Don't wait alone, create your own entertainer! Free of charge, all you need to do is to find a lab partner and you can make it happen! This little bugger keeps you entertained until your flight leaves, and we guarantee it's the best experience you can have on this airport. You'd be a fool not to do it, and you'll regret it if you won't." It's clear you can't take your entertainer with you when your flight finally leaves, but at least you'll have something to entertain yourself with. And it's free to make and after that you can buy stuff for it from the shops and decorate it and customise it to your liking. Sure, it'll stay behind after you're gone, and it might not even want to entertain you, but it's like you create something out of nothing, you're not taking anything from anyone, so why not make one? And, since you can have one so easy, and every passenger is entitled to as many as they want, why not have two or three? That will be even better!

So you make the choice and as easy as a snap of fingers the entertainer is here. (If it won't work, there'll be people to help you with that, because everyone is entitled to as many as they want.) You have fun and games, and you have someone to take care of and entertain back, you feel like you're making a difference to someone's life - sure that life didn't exist before you created it to make a difference to it, but it makes you feel good nonetheless. Before you know it, your flight is here and you can leave the airport. "Goodbye" you say to the little entertainers. Now your entertainers need to keep themselves entertained until their flight leaves. They are offered the same choice: Give to others, help others, write, entertain, leave beautiful things behind - or create your own free entertainer, with the guarantee they'll be with you until your departing flight is organized.

No advertising banner tells you that the little entertainers will be just as bored of the airport as you were, maybe even more so. They might question the whole thing, because why would anyone want to come to an airport if they don't have to? And besides, that's not your concern, they are your creations, you made them out of nothing, and therefore they are yours to do whatever you want with.

Some of the entertainers will do the same, some won't. The ones who won't work hard to find a meaning in their wait. They'll focus on using the time on bettering themselves, and although from time to time they might feel tempted to try one of those creations, they decide it's not really cool as the airport is already full of entertainers anyway and the cafeterias are hardly coping with the numbers they have to serve now. Also, one of the clauses of the offer is that you'll have to take care of it for the duration of your stay or until they are self-maintaining, although they know sometimes it is clear that the creator isn't coping very well and sometimes the entertainers become a burden. Regardless, that's the best form of entertainment the Airport has to offer, easy, cheap and highly popular.

But no matter how many entertainers you had during your stay, we all leave with the same amount of stuff and without the entertainers. On this flight, the only thing you're allowed to carry is your mind.

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