“Do you guys ever think about dying?”
Words famously spoken by Margot Robbie’s Barbie in the blockbuster Barbie.
I have an answer for you, Barbie: Yes! All the Roosevelt Dam time.
In the latest news about the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 flight, which had a chunk of its side blown off soon after takeoff, I’ve been pondering a particular context in which I think about dying — along with many fellow Americans.
Approximately 40 percent of the U.S. population fears flying, to some degree. While most Americans are not deathly afraid of flight, there is a general unease that accompanies a good number of commercial passengers when launched into the sky in a tin can.
Of course, this unease is statistically unfounded. According to FlyFright.com — which sounds like a totally unbiased source of information and not at all one funded by major airline companies seeking to dismantle the public’s fear of flying — the odds of a plane crashing are 0.000001 percent. In other words, American commercial flight passengers have a one in 816,545,929 chance of dying in a plane crash.
And yet, whenever I am strapped into my seat on the runway, I am in the habit of playing Mozart’s Requiem in my earbuds while the plane takes off. Perhaps morbid, but hey, a pretty good last song if worse comes to worst.
I am not particularly scared or anxious about flight — I actually quite enjoy it — but I find that air travel serves as a unique memento mori, a reminder that our lives are not in our own hands.
Perhaps more, general equanimity in the face of man’s mortal fate would lessen our compounded anxiety as a culture — not just in flying, but in all things. To this end, I recommend Plough’s work on the topic, particularly this piece.
Anyway, what’s your takeoff soundtrack?