Flight of thoughts...thoughts on a flight

[deponti]

When the aircraft climbs into the air, and I look out of the window, politics, religion, and social studies all merge into geography.

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Gone are the petty battles, the rivalry, the striving, the poverty, the conservation worries about pollution and destruction..only the courses of the rivers, the shapes and colours of the land, and the rising hills remain.

An aircraft in flight





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Domestic flights, unlike international ones, do not have maps that I can refer to., However, an occasional landmark gives me an idea about where I am passing.

A river melts into a big lake





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My thoughts move upward, from the hills and the valleys, the streams and the sands, the clusters of human habitation, to the eternal skies beyond. I give thanks for the immensity of human intelligence which has resulted in our being able to fly; I give thanks for the skill of the team that maintains the craft, guides it through the air, and flies it expertly, so that I can think without worrying about my safety. I may be several thousand feet high, but I do not feel the icy cold or the lack of oxygen in the air.

Sunrise and sunset from the windows of an aircraft are specially beautiful, and the close of a long day, or the beginning of a fresh one, fill my mind and heart with memories of where I have started from, or the expected experiences at the place to which I am going.

A train on its tracks





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Once upon a time, the window seat was the least preferred on in the row, and though I had to pay to price of clambering over one (and, nowadays, two) passengers to get to the aisle, I was compensated by the beauty of what I saw through that small window to the outside; So even now, when I have to pay for the seat (I still can't understand how, after paying for an air ticket, I am still charged separately for the seat! ) I sit at the window, dreaming and musing.  Occasionally, as I glimpse a beautiful formation or water body on the earth below, or scenes that appeal to me, I click pictures too.

Takeoffs and landings, too, never fail to thrill me. As the ground rushes past and falls away, or the wings rush down to meet the earth, I marvel anew at the miracle of our being able to fly, and to cover vast distances in a very short time. Technology, indeed, is magic that one has become used to!

A hill eaten away by granite excavation





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The plane loses altitude for landing. I feel the grind as the landing gear comes down. I collect my things, pack my camera away, smile ar the passenger next to me, with whom I have exchanged a few pleasant words. Another flight, another minor miracle, comes to an end, and I step out on to the solid ground, to take up the mundane details of down-to-earth life. Yes, the carbon footprint of each flight does worry me, but I put those thoughts aside when I have to take a flight.

Tailfin lineup





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Tracks of vehicles on the airport tarmac





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