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Have become curious why it is that I am overwhelmed with a sense of “all is right with the world” when I am in an airport.
As soon as I enter an airport I experience a lifting of all responsibility. Freedom from responsibility for oneself is the privilege of young children and I realize I start to regress to behaving like a kid, investing in airport personnel the task of taking care of me. Always they do their job well in this regard. I could be more adult and check myself in for my flights but I revel in my intentional incompetency and allow the kind clerks to do it all for me. I could read the small print handout diagramming where all the restaurants are but I prefer asking someone at the help desk to select for me, letting him/her know I prefer Asian cooking.
And on board, the set up looks like the passengers are babies in high chairs, with the tray tables about the dimension of high chair tables and the flight attendants peering down and asking you what you would like to eat or drink, pouring you the amount of beverage they want you to have, cleaning up your spills and deciding when the lights go out and when the lights go on, when it is okay for you to get out of your seat and what time you have to get up in the morning. They make sure you are in your “infant” seat securely positioned and that your belongings will not injure you or others. And they scold you when you are not following their directions.
Maybe one of the reasons some people have a fear of flying is that the prospect of turning over all control to the airline crew is more frightening than the fear of a plane crash.