Aviation
To say I was a cautious child would be an understatement. I was hesitant to try things by myself, terrified of heights, and afraid to walk on grass (yes, grass!). But then I discovered planes.
In kindergarten, I would persuade my parents to drive me to JFK to watch plane after plane take off, and I loved it. I grew older, reading magazines like Airliner World and watching documentary series like Mighty Planes. Through plane identification and flight simulator apps, plus scores of YouTube videos, I attuned my mind to the details of flight.
In a plane, my life depends on trust. For instance, in stepping onto a commercial flight, I put my life into the hands of strangers–albeit highly trained professionals–but strangers nonetheless. Working toward achieving a pilot’s license has shown me how to trust. I must trust my instruments, my copilot, and my own skills; on our very first lesson, an instructor I’d never met before asked me to perform the takeoff! In a plane, my life depends on trust. In my life, the same applies. I have had to trust my teachers, my students, and my teammates, while also trusting myself as a student, as a teacher, and on the playing field. In order to succeed in any context, trust in myself has equalled my trust in others every step of the way, independence going hand in hand with interdependence.
My study of aviation made me more sensitive to the minutiae of life, like noticing an imprecise derivative in math or a batter’s tendencies from the pitcher’s mound. Just as I’ve become accustomed to detecting a deviation in course or a faulty aileron, I have learned to apply this aptitude in anthropological contexts: I can read people’s ticks and body language. This sixth sense has enabled me to connect with individuals across different cultural contexts.
My most significant discovery in aviation came far outside the cockpit, far across the world in fact. It came on a recent trip to Iraqi Kurdistan, during which I helped teach a course on media literacy and entrepreneurship to teenage Syrian refugees. Overcoming one challenge after another, they fled civil war and found themselves in the safety of the Arbat refugee camp and in the academic environment of our class. They were just like myself, and they were beautifully curious. One lesson was focused on imagining futures, specifically through virtual reality; a student, Maria, said she had never flown on an airplane. For the next day, I designed a lesson in which all of the students had the opportunity to fly in the cockpit of a virtual plane on YouTube. Just minutes after putting the VR headset on, Maria began to laugh. When she removed it, tears of joy brimmed in her eyes, and she thanked me profusely. Her appreciation for the thing I have loved so deeply struck a chord within me. The fact that I could partially fulfill her dream gave us a new way to relate to each other; it was more significant than just an opportunity for education. Helping others, boosting others up, is an important aspect of human nature, and in an achievement-focused society, it’s important to focus on the achievement of others. Although not in a plane, Maria was able to fly, and I felt an immense pride in ferrying her on the way to her own achievement.
The cockpit of a plane is an agency vacuum: there is not one thing that has true control of the situation: it’s a balance between chaos and order. Life mirrors this pattern, and I have come to trust myself a great deal more, and to cope with uncertainty in the cockpit and in life. And for that, I thank you, flight.