The Sublime Nature of Flying

There's something sublime about flying, even if it is in a noisy 747 with a few hundred other people. The cramped conditions, uncomfortable seats and average food are all made worthwhile by one always present yet everchanging thing.

The horizon.

Sometimes it's a hard line; separating two equally blue halves of the world, ocean and late-Summer sky, with my single-serving friends and I suspended somewhere in the middle.

Sometimes it's lost in the greyish whiteness of the clouds that start just off the port wingtip and continue unchanged until well past where the horizon should be.

Sometimes it's providing the platform for a deep orange sunrise to use as leverage to overcome the cold, black night. Cold and serene; yet giving rise to the same day I've seen before on the other side of the world.

It's peaceful up there, isolated from the world. Isolated from checking Facebook or Twitter every minute; isolated with my thoughts about what the journey ahead will bring. It fills my head with ideas on which I am unable to act upon until I have returned to civilisation.

I think that's where the creative bursts I get when I travel come from -- this period of enforced isolation away from distractions. It fills me with purpose, and energy, and the excitement of discovery.

It's wonderful.