It's difficult not to be engrossed in the unfolding tragedy of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Anyone who has ever stepped foot onto a commercial aircraft (and that's millions) is touched by this mystery. We make travel plans. We purchase tickets. We drive to the airport. We board a plane, and hope for the best. We never know who is flying the plane. We never know who else boarded the plane. We never know what is in the cargo hold or who maintained the aircraft. We never know the intentions of the hundreds of people intricately connected to our travel plans and ultimate destination. Yes, we hear about how safe air travel is, but when things go wrong, they go terribly, horribly wrong in ways that remind us all how fleeting life can be, and how tenuous our hold is on the future.
Humans, by nature, are curious. We like to know stuff and we love to be sure. This curiosity and need for absolution, after all, has led to our greatest inventions and to the most profound scientific understandings of our universe. The unknown has always been a precarious place in human existence. Because of our beautiful untamed imaginations, this unknown is often fraught with danger, mystery and even horror. "What if", for many, are our most uncomfortable known words. What if I fail? What if it's scarier, What if it's more painful, What if it's worse than I imagined? Most people crave safety and the security that comes with known territory. The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 has tapped into our deepest fears, our most pronounced insecurities and our secret doubts about the certainty of science, technology and life itself. In reality, certainty is a myth. Our time on this Earth is fleeting, fraught with risk, doubt, powerlessness and lack of control. Nothing highlights this more than a giant aircraft seemingly vanishing into thin air with 239 people just like us on board.
While we wait for the experts to locate the jet, the souls on board and piece together this perplexing puzzle, let us remember and celebrate the beauty of life, the exquisiteness within each of us, and the remarkably little control and power we truly have in the large scheme of the universe, except for this moment, right here, right now. In the end, maybe that is all that really matters - making the most of this second, this minute, this parcel of time granted to us with the knowledge that it could be our last. May peace and comfort be with all the family and friends of the missing, and to all of us.
Be kind to each other and to yourself.
© Copyright 2014 Douglas Layer, M.A., LPCC
Humans, by nature, are curious. We like to know stuff and we love to be sure. This curiosity and need for absolution, after all, has led to our greatest inventions and to the most profound scientific understandings of our universe. The unknown has always been a precarious place in human existence. Because of our beautiful untamed imaginations, this unknown is often fraught with danger, mystery and even horror. "What if", for many, are our most uncomfortable known words. What if I fail? What if it's scarier, What if it's more painful, What if it's worse than I imagined? Most people crave safety and the security that comes with known territory. The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 has tapped into our deepest fears, our most pronounced insecurities and our secret doubts about the certainty of science, technology and life itself. In reality, certainty is a myth. Our time on this Earth is fleeting, fraught with risk, doubt, powerlessness and lack of control. Nothing highlights this more than a giant aircraft seemingly vanishing into thin air with 239 people just like us on board.
While we wait for the experts to locate the jet, the souls on board and piece together this perplexing puzzle, let us remember and celebrate the beauty of life, the exquisiteness within each of us, and the remarkably little control and power we truly have in the large scheme of the universe, except for this moment, right here, right now. In the end, maybe that is all that really matters - making the most of this second, this minute, this parcel of time granted to us with the knowledge that it could be our last. May peace and comfort be with all the family and friends of the missing, and to all of us.
Be kind to each other and to yourself.
© Copyright 2014 Douglas Layer, M.A., LPCC
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