From, Paul Theroux, travel excerpts:

"Meanwhile, what of the journey itself? Perhaps there is nothing to say. There is not much to say about most airplane journeys. Anything remarkable must be disastrous, so you define a good flight by negatives. You didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, you weren't nauseated by the food. So you are grateful. The gratitude brings such relief your mind goes blank, which is appropriate, for the airplane passenger is a time-traveler.

"He crawls into a carpeted tube that is reeking of disinfectant; he is strapped in to go home, or away. Time is truncated, or in a ny case warped: he leaves in one time zone and emerges in a nother. And from the moment he steps into the tube and braces his knees on the seat in front, uncomfortably upright -- from the moment he departs, his mind is focused on arrival. That is, if he has any sense at all. If he looked out of the window he would see nothing but the tundra of the cloud layer, and above is empty space. Time is brilliantly blinded: there is nothing to see. The is the reason so many people are apologetic about taking planes. They say, `What I'd really like to do is forget these plastic jumbos and get a three-masted schooner and just stand there on the poop deck with the wind in my hair.'"

-- I have to admit this is somewhat true for me. I have had very few memorable plane trips, they are not events in themselves as perhaps a train or boat trip can be.

I long (maybe not knowing full why) to have accumulated the miles, the status, the perks, but not to have to accumulate them. It's the endless cycle: to get the perks, you must fly, then to enjoy the perks, you must fly more.

When it goes well, it really goes well. But not enough to outweigh the 10x more frequent average trips when it doesn't.

Anyway, enough grumbling, it's our condition, perhaps. Nihil novum sub sole.