In transito

August 24, 2010

-          9:29 PM Edmonton time

According to my in-flight map, we’re flying a little more than halfway across the Atlantic Ocean. On the map, there are spots highlighted- Maury Seachannel, Porcupine Bank, Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone. Unfortunately, these do not help me get my bearings.

Bearings. On a flight like this, you start to lose them. Around me, it is pitch dark, everyone is sleeping, yet I feel completely awake. I’m sure that has to do with the whole “it’s only 9 pm in Edmonton” complex, but it doesn’t help me feel any better.

In the same aisle as me is a pleasant gentleman from the UK. The seat between us, for whatever reason, is empty, so we decided early on in the flight to use it as communal ground. Take that Thomas Hobbes!

On the recommendation of a friend, I was reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Right off the bat, you realize what kind of a phenomenal generational shift we’ve gone through. Quinn, according to the back cover, was born in 1933. I challenge the Stephanie Meyer’s of today to write a philosophical treatise using age-old Socratic dialogue techniques. Actually, I sometimes felt that the Socratic dialogue, while initially brilliant, somewhat stiffened the conversation, but I thought the book, overall, was quite good. Unfortunately, for a book filled with syllogisms, Quinn makes some fairly serious logical leaps that are a bit off- more on that later, perhaps.

I hope that I end up doing good in Pakistan. I mean that in both senses of the word. I want to do “good” in the sense of helping others, but I also want to use this opportunity to peer into my own heart and make sure it is in the right place. After all, if my heart, and my actions, are not for the right reasons, then the whole venture is sort of pointless. I end up becoming a mere passerby, a person who peers over the shoulders of other people on the plane to see what movie they are watching, always checking for another opportunity to fulfill their every whim. I don’t want to be that person.

Please keep me in your thoughts and in your prayers.

And in our second half hour, we will be having a special guest in the form of Louis Riel!

P.S> I apologize if this is written in a slightly disjointed and Joyce-like prose (read: I don’t like James Joyce, or any of the stranger post-modern writers <Michael Ondaatje, I’m looking at you>). It has been a couple of weeks since I have put my pen to paper, so to speak, so I hope it gets a bit more organized as I continue writing!