Flying and the art of motorcycle maintenance


One of my favorite books is called Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.  It is a book about life, values, and of course fixin’ motorcycles.  There are many great quotes in the book by Robert R. Pirsig and one of them is this:

"The truth knocks on your door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away."

Once you think about that for a minute it becomes increasingly obvious to many of us that there is a lot of truth in that statement.  So many times we cannot see what is right in front of us or goes by without our consciousness grasping the fact that it was there.

I’ve been flying a lot lately and it seems like I have been spending more time in planes than in my rig (car).  So many flight attendants with names like, Dawn, Natalie, Jennifer, and Grant.

Always the slightly forced smile after so many years serving people pretzels, water, coffee, and a soft drink giving that pleasant word here and there while resetting the call button.  I have been traveling the same routes lately so we are starting to recognize each other and more in depth conversations about what I am working on and where I’m heading this trip.  Nice people sometimes doing a thankless job.

With all of the flying it reminds me of old sayings from my previous flying days.  Here are a few of them.

  1. Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the number of take offs you've made.
  2. It's always a good idea to keep the pointy end going forward and the shiny side up.
  3. Every takeoff is optional. Every landing is mandatory.
  4. When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No one has ever collided with the sky.
  5. A 'good' landing is one from which you can walk away. A 'great' landing is one after which they can use the plane again.
  6. In the ongoing battle between objects made of aluminum going hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour, the ground has yet to lose.
  7. If all you can see out of the window is ground that's going round and round and all you can hear is commotion coming from the passenger compartment, things are not at all as they should be.

Flying has its own rewards but sometimes the path you take leads you to destinations unknown or at least unexpected.

Ice

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