"Poised between the illusion of immortality and the fact of death"

Air travel has become such an ordinary occurrence in our lives, yet many of us feel an eerie uneasiness when we fly. We browse the mundane in-flight magazines while a 35,000 foot chasm of emptiness lurks just beneath our shoes. The flight attendants point out towards emergency exits that really go nowhere. We snack on mini pastries while just a few inches away, airstreams that are minus 50 degrees rush by.

And beyond all that is the vast nothingness, peppered with illusion, habit and little idiosyncratic rituals until something interrupts our day dreams. We hear the pilot's strained voice, garbled message and wonder for just one moment, will I break apart in freakish panic? In life too, we live inches from oblivion. We stand on a foundation of imagined or preset belief systems. Our only real security is to embrace insecurity.

So the next time you fly, board the aircraft as though entering a sacred battlefield, smile at that pretty airhostess, acknowledge the instructions on wearing your seatbelt correctly, place your tray table in its upright position, and gaze straight past the mini pastries and the random conversations into the unforgiving depths of the absolute.