The Window Seat

a tragedy

Airlines are losing money. The alternative is an excruciating realization of our worldly moment. Either pricing analysts cannot see the cash cow grazing in their midst, or society is deeply troubled. Think of those who have gone before us. The layman farmer toiled with and against the agrarian lifestyle, saving minuscule amounts depending on the season. The posh aristocrat who acquired gobs of wealth by virtue of last name or cunning influence. The Maya laborer who formed the limestone staircase on the Chichen Itza, sacrificing effort and neighbor. There is a thread of incessant pining across time. To rise. To gain. To look upward. What’s the price for a window seat? The farmer would spend years of laborious savings to see the expanse of fertile soil. The aristocrat would hand over the keys of the family castle to look down at plots of endless potential lining the crashing waves of the Atlantic coast. The Maya would slay the temporal to be in a celestial position. The window seat in any aircraft beckons us to consider our moment in time. It should be an expense that’s much costlier than the convenience of the aisle seat. Rather than looking up, we get to look down. The place of Olympus. Gazing towards each sunrise and sunset glistening off the tops of the clouds. Seeing the direction of lightning as it scatters downward towards a conductor. The full shadow of a mountain range. Endless beauty at 500 miles per hour. Instead, we shut the window to take the glare off our screens. We have lost the weight of majesty, or airlines are losing money.