I've just gotten off of one of the most bumpy & terrifying flights in recent memory. One of those experiences when you look around to find a calm face but everyone around you is white knuckling the side of the armrest grimacing. Once we landed I got to thinking about it- what is really so terrifying about some pot holes in the air? When you consider that no plane has ever crashed from turbulence it made me wonder what the fear is really about. Most of us are much less afraid of driving because there's no free fall on the road and we feel that in a car, even as a passenger, we've got some level of control.
There it is. Control. One of the most intoxicatingly powerful illusions in the human struggle. The issue with turbulence is really about the loss of control. The reckoning that we don't have any in those moments makes us completely vulnerable. And what is more terrifying than vulnerability?
