I am sitting here, 10 kilometers above the ground, enclosed in this metal thing, thinking. There is nothing to interrupt my thoughts. No Twitter, no Instagram, no Google - nothing. I’m disconnected from the world. I am connected to myself.
Ever since I started traveling, I always kept forgetting how rewarding flying is. Not only because it is a portal to new places and experiences but because it is often very boring and boredom has become such a hard thing to find on the ground.
What’s so special about boredom? It is a powerful tool to unlock one’s creativity and focus. When there is nothing else to do, I don’t have any excuse to put down the book I am reading. I have no excuse not to listen to my thoughts. I have hours with myself and myself only. I can’t recount how many wonderful ideas have been born and written down in my notebook when I was high up in the air.
You have to let yourself get so bored that your mind has nothing better to do than tell itself a story – Neil Gaiman
I want more of that boredom in my life. I haven’t done this properly yet but my idea is to schedule these “flight sessions” once in a while by getting rid of all the electronics (apart from iPad to capture notes, maybe) or put them all on the flight mode and then spend a few hours just sitting there and doing nothing. I bet those sessions could be as rewarding as flying itself.