Reflection 1: Distance and Geography

Well, I'm all out of destinations to write about, but I still have a few things to say. These trains of thought (yeah, pun intended) began on my travels, and I'm bringing them to completion here. Here's the first one.

"You cannot count the miles until you feel them"
-Townes Van Zandt

As someone who has traveled significant distances on multiple occasions by both by air and rail, I think that plane travel teaches us some lies about geography that train travel can help correct. Flying convinces us that the world is an archipelago of familiar places instead of a vast, largely unknown continuum with pockets of familiarity. When you take the train, you realize that there are places as real as your destination at every step along the way. Some may be more populated, or more scenic, or more historic, but you experience them all from the same perspective. Flying obscures this because only the end points are really felt by the traveler. The in-between is seen from 30,000 feet, and therefore we cannot encounter it in the same way. We get no sense for what the people, plants, or animals are like. The world is conformed to a map we see from above rather than a landscape we can see ourselves in.

In addition to obscuring the vastness of our planet and the reality of all its parts, flight also obscures distance. On the train, you are able to "count the miles" because you feel each one go by from the same vantage point as you experience distance in the rest of your life: walking, driving, biking, and training all position you a few feet off the ground, adequate for observing the details of scenery.

I don't want to overstate my case, because flying teaches us the obverse: that all places, our entire planet fro that matter, are small and finite. And that there is great beauty to our planet when viewed on a grand scale, i.e. from 30,000 (or more) feet.

I flew from Seattle to L.A. for reasons that are too complicated to explain in this post, but doing so afforded me the opportunity to see Mt. Rainier rising up through a blanket of clouds above Seattle. I could not have seen this by staying on the ground, and it was truly impressive. And in Albuquerque, I took a tram up to Sandia Peak that, at is highest, suspended us 1,000 feet above the ground below. Again, that view could not be equaled staying grounded.

But both of these are vistas and not worlds. They appear uninhabited, except for your fellow passengers in whatever metal box you happen to be traveling in. On the train, you are similarly confined, but you are everywhere confronted with how places are populated and how far apart they really are. So try taking the train, it's worth the extra time.

Thanks for reading,