Lift Off

I am not bound by anything... no one is. Where we may be limited in the physical world, we are absolutely free in our mental world. We do choose, for the most part, how we live. This being said, I have found a new form of freedom: flying. I started flying lessons about two months ago. And I feel there is no freedom like flying. There is a moment right before take off, when I'm sitting on the runway, waiting to go. It's the calm before the storm. My plane sits at one end the runway, the engine is going, but my feet are pressing down on the brakes, so I'm not moving. I push the throttle in the whole way, and I listen to the engine roar. The propeller moves so fast I can no longer see the motion. The plane jolts forward as I release the brakes. The wheels are still touching the ground for half the length of the runway as I gather enough speed to take off. About three quarters of the way down the runway I lift the nose of the plane and I'm airborne. I slowly go from touching the ground to 3000 feet in air.

From 3000 feet in the air, the world is a very different place. The world is much more beautiful. The details that I focus on on the ground, are no longer visible 3000 feet in the air. Large becomes small, and small becomes non-existent. There is a whole new set of details, that were previously unseen. Flying has given me a new perspective on how to look at the world. Sometimes we focus so greatly on very small details, we miss the whole picture. It's much easier to see everything if you step away and look at things from a different point of view...

All the philosophy aside I really enjoy flying. I enjoy the lift off the most. There's an element of magic mixed in with all of the engineering/science. I think I'm in disbelief each and every time I pilot the plane to take off. I usually sit an airplane about once a month, it's definitely not the same. There's something about piloting the plane yourself...