i’m flying over the news right now.
as far as i can tell, we’re flying over afghanistan, and in an hour or two we’ll be flying near kashmir.
oh, yup, there’s kabul on the skymap.
i’m intentionally staying awake so that i can see all of the cool things over which we’re flying.
this flight from london to singapore is amazing, cos you get to fly over so much amazing stuff. we’ve flown over the black sea and the caspian sea and right now we’re over what i assume is afghanistan or one of the other stans.
the last time that i did this flight i was asleep for most of it, so i wasn’t able to look out the window and see afghanistan or india. this time i’m awake. beyond tired, but awake.
there is so much empty space in the world. take a long plane trip over russia or central asia or australia or even the american southwest and you realize, or get a sense of, just how much uninhabitated land there is in the world.
most of us live in extremely densely populated parts of the world. but the majority of the world isn’t populated at all. like the mountains that i’m flying over right now. no roads. no villages. no cities. nothing as far as the eye can see except for mountains.
my hope now is that some overeager guy on the ground with a sophisticated anti-aircraft gun doesn’t decide to shoot down our humble little 747. we come in peace, right?
just a plane full of australians and singaporeans and a few brits and americans (well, probably just one american, me. there’s not a lot of incentive for americans to fly to singapore via london…).
and on a completely different subject…they had ‘annie hall’ as one of the in-flight movies! i’ve seen ‘annie hall’ maybe 10 times in my life and i never get bored of it.
wow. look at the canyons and valleys. amazing. if i really let my imagination wander i can pretend that we’re flyling over mars. it’s desolate, the rock formations are reddish, and there’s absolutely no sign of human habitation. it’s barren but really beautiful. i’m glad that i’m forcing myself to stay awake, even if i happen to be the only annoying person on the plane with his window shade up. if i were trying to sleep i would hate me right now…but i’ll feel guilty later when i’m done looking at these amazing mountains from 33,000 feet.
what’s cool is that at some point i will become so tired that i will sleep in spite of myself. it’s always interesting when your body forces you to sleep.
unless you’re driving, operating heavy machinery, or performing surgery.
bye for now,
moby
p.s-we’re right between kabul and kandahar now. you could hide in these mountains for 50,000 years and no one would find you.