Category Archives: Deep Thoughts

That feeling when you’re starting to feel overwhelmed and exhausted and maybe even a bit panicky because there’s just SO MUCH HAPPENING ALL AT ONCE and an awful lot of it is bad and scary and threatening and all you can see are the worst case scenarios and you’re grateful when something that happens that is simply BAD instead of really, Really, REALLY BAD so you’re looking for answers and a plan and something that’s not just striking out in anger and fear and that little voice in your head asks, “Do you need to re-invent the wheel? There must be groups that have dealt with things like this before, what do they do?” and that’s when, if you can remember to keep reminding yourself that you have had some training and education in that regard and the lessons were to simplify, focus, prioritize, endure, persist, and above all, “Fly the plane!”

You’ll pardon me if I’ve mentioned it before, but that’s a critical one and worth repeating.

“Fly the plane!”

To wit, my flight instructor asked me during a takeoff what I would do if the door next to me came unlatched and came open suddenly. I figured I would try to close it or see if I could hold it with one hand or… Wait, you’re at a critical stage of flight where a distraction can be fatal. Pull up too steeply and stall, roll a bit to one side or the other, don’t pay attention to those tall smokestacks over there, slow down and lose airspeed — and you’re a statistic. Will the door being open cause the plane to crash? In fact, no, it won’t. It will be distracting and scary and loud and unexpected – but your job is to ignore all of that and “Fly the plane!” The door coming open won’t kill you, but being distracted by it might.

“In fact, the door DID come unlatched for me a few months later, and it is a loud, startling occurrence. But I flew the plane until I got to pattern altitude and had a moment to breathe, then I got the door shut again. It was a non-event because I “flew the plane!”)

That theme occurred over and over. What if the engine quits? Okay, you try to re-start it, check fuel, look for a place to land, call for help… but do it all while flying the plane.

In life, right now, there are a lot of scary distractions that seem threatening. But in fact, very, very few are potentially fatal or as disastrous as we might think. As long as we keep remember to “fly the plane.”

A couple of times today, many more times than I would like to remember over the last couple of weeks, conversations have gotten to the point where either “Okay!” or “Fuck you!” are the proper next response – along with the resulting consequences.

I have consistently been doing that whole responsible, mature adulting thing.

An argument can be made that I’m making the wrong decisions.

Tomorrow’s another day to be a mature, responsible adult. And wonder if the moment’s coming when I’m not.

…it’s that whole, “If you can’t say something nice, shut up!” thing.

When this is piled on top of that and it’s all wrapped up in oodles of some other crisis with a bit of panic-inducing whatever it is sprinkled on for spice, it’s easy to just scream until you run out of air.

But that doesn’t accomplish much. It probably won’t even help you release tension. Feels like more of a positive feedback loop, the adult version of letting a baby cry itself to sleep. (Wait, I can get to sleep if I do that?)

I think it was somewhere in Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff” that I heard a description of the ideal test pilot on a flight where EVERYTHING is going wrong and a horrible, fiery, painful death is just seconds away. The guys with the right stuff never had a change in their tone of voice. To try to save the day (and live) they would try “plan A” – that didn’t work – “plan B” – that didn’t work – “plan C” – nope – moving on to “plan D” – nothing – next we’ll try…

Never any panic. Just trying to figure out what the next step was as efficiently and quickly as possible before either fixed it and saved your ass or you were the first to arrive at the scene of the crash.

Panic.

That’s what it is that causes the screaming. Panic is not knowing what the next step is, or not being able to take that step, or just lashing out blindly in the hope that something you might do completely randomly and unpredictably will turn out to be the one in a million thing that works.

We’re not there yet. Still trying to keep working through that alphabet of plans. Still trying to keep that tone of voice in that flat, steady, West Texas drawl.

But I am starting to worry that the smoking hole in the desert is getting close. For all of us.