Ever since the Wrights spoiled the party on the ground by taking to the skies the humans have kept wanting to improve the experience.
After over 100 years let me announce this...
We really have NOT! We flew Singapore Air - the staff at least does not yell back at you (certain stateside airlines will also give you free attitude and no peanuts) but its still hopeless.
One good thing going for the brothers Orville and Wilbur was that they tried to experiment on a beach in the Carolinas... clean fresh air and a short flight. Bathroom breaks at will etc.
Modern flights - this one going from San Fran to some point in Asia - 14 plus hours depending on the point. In something they call COACH. Not the fancy accouterment the ladies carry - although now that I think about it the trip sure felt like I was sitting in one. Cramped - barely able to sleep.
Some have counseled that the way to do these long haul pressurized, smelly, sort of compressed and almost tasteless food journeys is to adopt a Zen posture. Tune it all out and dream of what awaits on the other end. Sometimes that can work - again depending on what the other end might be or why you are trying to get there.
Regardless, add few infants (that are beginning to lose it) and invalids to the mix coupled with the pressures on the airline to keep feeding the dolts in all those seats lest they revolt, the passageways are barely free to wander and stretch any part of the anatomy.
If you do stretch, careful what you wish for since the bowels may want to take a break from this monotony and if luck would have it the lavatories would be out of commission - someone really went wild minutes before you and they had to shut a few down.
Now you have an aromatic pressurized cabin with wild infants and meal carts and semi comatose world citizenry, some waking up in an unfamiliar time zone and wondering why they got boiled chicken instead of the Korean grilled beef.
That's my beef!
Today's world is hyper connected. I am not so sure what it means but you hear it a lot. It is probably hyper but not sure how connected it is. Sugar (fermented or not) is available in many ways than before and so getting hyper is easy. It is probably more a threat than cocaine since it is sold legally. And what is this connected stuff? Most people I encounter seem disconnected from reality. So going back to this assumption that we are connected there are subtle and no so subtle instances of how brands and companies and middle men try to portray someone - A linkedin profile for somebody working for X years at a place advertises to the connected network that so and so is CELEBRATING X years @ Such and Such Inc. Do we know if (s)he is celebrating or cringing? Perhaps a better way to portray will be - So and So LASTED X years @ such & such inc. Then it exhorts the readership to go ahead and congratulate them for this lasting effe...
at least you are not asking where's the beef, like some great people. The less said about long flights, the better.
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