too much:

because sometimes, tweets just aren't roomy enough

[jordanblock]

Gettin Old

Last month, I celebrated my 25th birthday. It passed like any other day would- relatively uneventfully. I went to work, home, dinner and drinks at Krug with a couple of my roommates.. This is a relatively standard Friday night, which is to say it was super great, but nothing terribly exceptional.  But on days that mark some significant point (as arbitrary as turning a quarter-century may be) in my life, it feels a shame to let the day to have passed in relative normalcy. I tend not to operate under the illusion that I am particularly special. I don't think I'm a genius, I don't think that I'm even what would be described as super great at what I do. In all likelihood, I will not change the world in any statistically significant way.  But this inability to change the world in a globally significant way does not mean that I can't change the world- I can change one person's world on any given day. I can change a moment, and the consequences of that moment have the possibility of changing the world in a way that can't be measured by jobs created, or laws changed, or contests won. I tend to observe my life from the perspective of my death. I look at myself today from the future, thinking frequently, "what the hell am I doing with my life? What is the point of what I'm doing right now? Was today a total waste?" and I frequently hang my head in shame or embarrassment or fear of a lost opportunity or a wasted day/week/month/year. As I'm metaphorically or literally hanging my head, I miss what's going on around me. I'm missing all these small moments happening in my office, or with my friends, or with my family where I can be there to remind them that I am so proud of them, and that I love them so deeply and that I think the world is a better place because they're in it. I frequently find myself wallowing in self-pity at my lack of contribution to the world as I think it will be perceived by the people at my funeral- and I miss the opportunity to love others into being as they've loved me (and continue to love me) into being. While I can't guarantee anything as far as what I actually do- I intend to try to practice patterns of behavior that I would not only be proud of when I do ultimately die, but patterns that honor the people around me who have given me life. I want to help. I want to give people life as I've been gifted it- freely. I still want to change the world in a bigger sense too. I do want to help change the laws that I think are unjust, and I do want to stop bad people from doing bad things and I want to help good people do good things. But I also want to remember to be a simple, gentle reminder to those around me that they are so precious. To anyone who ends up reading these words, I am honestly thinking of you as a type them out. I'm with you, and for you, and as Mr. Rogers said: I like you just the way you are.

[jordanblock]

Terminal

"We're fatally flawed, in the image of God." Jon Foreman, one of my favorite artists, released The Wonderlands: Sunlight a few days ago. This little EP and all of his other work is well worth checking out if you haven't before. As my friend Craig puts it, "Jon Foreman sure knows how to make one feel not alone as a human." The quoted line above has stuck out to me more than anything else in the EP so far, for the exact reason that Craig nails on the head.  There's something in me and I think in all of us that's deeply and fundamentally lacking. I need others, they need me. But man, that logical knowledge doesn't do much to stop the feeling of being fundamentally and tragically isolated as a human being. But the idea behind what he's saying here (at least as I choose to interpret the line), opens up the possibility of something else that's not apparently theologically flashy, or clean, or easy: Jon Foreman struggling with me, and me with him- and God struggling with us, and us with God and every other possible messy connection that lies in those connections. This is dirty and nasty and actually is kind of comparatively shitty as I think about it. I don't have the things to fall back on that I used to or that I'd like to ideally- I don't have the false support that I imagined I had in either myself or in a god that I create based on my own needs and wants. Rather, there's a "wounded healer" so to speak (to steal words from another man I admire a great deal) that isn't controlling me, or punishing me, or hurting me, or striking down vengeance on me when I mess up, or showering me with infinite satisfaction when I do good.  Instead, I've got this organic (in every sense of the word- constantly growing in some places and decaying in others) thing that I'm cheered with cried with, not rewarded or punished. Thanks for the good music Jon Foreman.

[jordanblock]

Fixin

Above is a pretty standard picture of me. The toothless smile, the dirty dishes and alcohol taking up any non-negative space in the bokeh, my hair in a slight state of disarray- and one framed picture to provide the illusion that I live in something resembling civility.. But this picture is the first picture that I took after taking apart my laptop, replacing the memory and the hard drive, putting it back together, and it functioning properly- and past that, it's functioning better than it has in years. This picture is by all accounts pretty terrible and contrived, but that shit-eating grin in it is real. I did something, and did it well- yes, it's about the easiest hardware swap possible, but it's still more than I've ever done before. I'm stoked!

[jordanblock]

Gray

I took this picture of my friends Alex and Bridget earlier and posted it to Instagram.  I realized looking back through a few of my pictures that I haven't ever frequently posted pictures of people- or at least I haven't been in the past. I took a brief break from all social media from the end of November to the beginning of 2015, during which I found myself taking fewer pictures of pretty things to show people, and taking more pictures of the people I care about.  There are a lot of pretty things in the world, and I'm certainly not ignoring those, just the things I found myself choosing to store in the 32gb hard drive of my life's photo album are less the things that I want people to know I've seen and more things that I treasure.  This is a picture of two of my friends eating some Mother India in Craig and Lydia's kitchen's nook.  

[jordanblock]

Disoriented

Slavoj Žižek talks about singular moments that alter the course of a relationship.  These can happen when you witness a previously trusted neighbor or friend with a shockingly menacing look in their eye, or when they think you're not watching and they kick a dog, push a child, or steal.  It can be anything like this.  These moments happen when you thought you knew someone, and you realize you didn't.  I had one of these moments, but instead of it being a friend or neighbor who betrayed my idea of who they were, it was myself betraying my own idea of me, and I'm ashamed. I have a story about myself that I tell myself.  The things that you fill your mind with become the thing you are, and I've filled my mind with a story about myself, full of good things, but nothing more than a story.  This moment clarified something for me in the most devastating way possible: my story is my life, not the other way around. "I wanted to be loved because I was great; A big man. I'm nothing. Look at the glory around us; trees, birds. I lived in shame. I dishonored it all, and didn't notice the glory. I'm a foolish man... What I want to do, I can't do. I do what I hate." - These quotes from The Tree of Life have never rang truer to me.. This is the story that mirrors the one that springs forth from my life, instead of the one that I've told myself about me. God, please help me orient myself meaningfully.  I so often do what I hate.  Please let me hear past the noise of the story I tell myself about myself.

[jordanblock]

Spending time in Japan

So I've been insanely fortunate to have had the chance to travel to Japan twice this year.  Both times, I've gone to Osaka, then moved on to Kyoto.  Traveling in Japan is such a strange experience for me, as I assume it similarly is for many Americans. Obviously everything is about as different as one could imagine it would be.  For me, traveling to an enormous urban Japanese city like Osaka is extremely disorienting and isolating. Even though signs are in English and you see loads of obviously non-Japanese people at tourist attractions, just walking through the city can be a lonely experience as you're barraged by the thousands of neon signs flashing and shilling some really bizarre looking Japanese products on the sides of these towering buildings, while there are seemingly ever present car horns and city noise blocking out your ability to think, coupled with the fact that 90+% of the people around you share maybe a dozen words of effective communication. I've felt super alone there, and it's total sensory overload. But then, just outside Osaka, there's Kyoto. It has this quiet, beautiful, old, almost rustic-urban (I know that doesn't make sense) charm to it.  In the middle of the city, you can yourself stumbling into a Japanese garden surrounded by nothing but quiet. Or you can just happen upon some a huge gravel boulevard in the middle of an enormous public park leading up to a temple, where the only people around are on foot or bicycle, the only noise they make is the crunch of the gravel below their feet or tires as they pass by.  For me, in these quiet places, it's much easier to see what really distracting me, because I am still so clearly distracted in these places where I've been telling myself I should have the ability to feel abundant peace. I'm constantly talking over myself reaffirming the things that I've already told myself I believe about the world in the conversation I'm having with myself inside of my own head. It's silly, closing myself off to so much when I refuse to leave the safety of my thoughts behind. I can't see the gray and green beauty of a place like Osaka when I've already told myself that it's lights and noises are overwhelming.  I also can't really appreciate the moments of stillness and solitude and internal quiet while sitting in one of these gardens in Kyoto when I'm seeking only the idealized version of that type solitude that I've built in my own head.  I'm not able to truly experience any of them while I'm spending all my mental energy trying to capture and describe the feeling of the moment to myself and then to others.  Slowly trying to learn to let go of the things that are impeding me from wrapping my arms around the life I'm meant to live.  

[jordanblock]

Árstíðir sings "Heyr himna smiður" in a German Train Station

Lovely.

According to an apparently Icelandic-speaking user Þórhallur Bjarni Björnsson, (the name looks Icelandic enough to me) the lyrics translate to:

"Hear creator of the heavens what the poet begs.

Come softly to me your mercy.

I trust in you, you have created me.

I am your servant you are my lord.

God, I trust in you to heal me.

For the least, my king, we need you the most.

Take, my God, so powerful and inquisitive, the sorrow out of our hearts.

My king, watch over me, we need you the most.

For every moment to hold ground.

Set the son of a maiden, a beautiful matter.

All the help from you in my heart."

According to Björnsson: "This is written in a very violent time in the Sturlunga-age in Iceland. A few families were having disagreements over power and the man who wrote this poem was a member of one of those families. He was in the Ásbirninga family and his name was Kolbeinn Tumason. It is said that he wrote this just prior to "Víðinesbardagi", a battle in 1208. He said this poem over and over, so often that the people around him memorized it."

[jordanblock]

Space

This is a strange post to write.. Or it may simply be strange to post publicly, as I feel what I want to communicate is in a sense subverted by the act of attempting to vocalize it. Hopefully I can communicate my thoughts well enough that this apparent paradox will be held in a tension of sorts, rather than messily tearing itself apart. But I digress: why is it that despite not really ever having anything too terribly urgent to do, I feel so stressed out and busy constantly? The white noise of so many self-imposed perceived necessities so drowns out that inner voice that speaks truth about my desires that even when I start to pursue something that I truly want to pursue, the tiny voice reminding me of the purpose of my pursuance is lost among the other voices yelling to explore the world more, keep applying for other jobs, put myself in a more financially secure position, and so on and so on. There needs to be some sort of a space, a break, or a rest where that little voice is given the room it needs to let itself be known, and for us to explore it. I recently reread Intimacy, by Henri Nouwen, a book exploring ideas regarding topics of love, faith, happiness, depression, and community (especially in relation to how Nouwen saw these functioning among the students in a Catholic seminary) from a few years he spent at Notre Dame half a century ago, and I've been inspired by his perspective on the paramount necessity of space (even to the point of what many seminarians would consider "regression"), freedom, and privacy for these ideals to be met or even approached.  In a conversation whose aim is to build a relationship between two individuals, silence can paradoxically be more conducive to this type of meaningful interaction than even discussion about the deepest most intimate secrets of a person.  This can be the case if that person whose real identity (for lack of a better term) is being discussed isn't in a place where they are completely invested in overcoming whatever hesitations they have about sharing that part of themselves.  The subtle, implied, and very powerful pressure to over-share in a conversation can be detrimental to someone's mental state if they're not in a place where they are emotionally and mentally ready to deal with the intrusion of another into their personal- or further, traumatic- history (this is especially true during different types of community events, retreats, and so on, where one is encouraged to form deeply "intimate" bonds with people who are essentially strangers over a very short and incredibly emotion-driven period of time). At the opposite pole of this type of suffocating lack of space, there is false proximity, where sometimes we would rather talk for hours (often using welcoming/loving language as a means of actually distancing ourselves- i.e. "so good to see/meet you" and the like) than say one singular meaningful sentence that we find difficult to say, face, or come to terms with.  This type of speaking is almost always purposeless- with the obvious exception in cases where the constant talking serves an immediate purpose of detracting people from entering a space that we're not ready for them to enter- but we do this with ourselves (or at least I do this with myself).  I talk myself in circles, and create hurdles for myself, to either avoid facing a startling reality, or to convince myself that I will at some point later be better equipped to deal with that startling reality (whatever it might be). For some of the stuff, I personally am just a bit idiotic about it.  I've pursued jobs with ferocity that I knew I wouldn't get (or even want) instead of focusing on developing skills that would make me a better applicant and person for jobs that I would do well at and care about. This type of veiled time-wasting allows me to convince myself that I'm being productive, while actually interfering with my own goals by "actually" (not actually) pursuing those goals in a completely inappropriate way.   We need to give ourselves this space for reflection to allow us to really come to terms with what we're doing with our time.  Not in some fatalistic way of coming to terms with our lives in the sense that we talk ourselves into a coma with questions like "what is the purpose of even having a job?" "What is money?" or "Am I just another cog in the figurative economic machine of some dead academic, whose ideas that were spoken hundreds of years before my birth affect my everyday life to the point were I can't even establish or maintain a truly unique personal identity?", but rather something closer to, "what are the things that I love?" and "How can I fit that into a vocation so I can feel a true, deep, appreciative sense of satisfaction with the things that fill my days?"  Creating space away from the noise in our lives to ask these questions is (at least in my opinion) really important for our sanity. The things in this post are strange for me to write, and they feel jumbled and cluttered as I read them back to myself. I hope it makes at least some amount of sense!

[jordanblock]

Courage

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what." Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

[jordanblock]

Airline Jobs = Worse and worse?

jheath:

I’m not bitter in the slightest. I had a job at one of the highest paying regional airlines in SkyWest, I left voluntarily, and I don’t miss it. I’m also well aware there are a lot of aspiring pilots who follow this blog because I field questions from them all the time and I’m always glad to respond with whatever advice I can offer based on my own experiences. But I refuse to lie to these young people by sugar coating the truth. And if they ever hope to realize their dreams they need to understand the realities of where the airline industry is headed in order to affect positive change. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem I’m describing. It’s not just the “shit jobs,” as you say. Major airlines have been hit hardest by salary concessions over the last decade. Most pilots at mainline carriers are making 40% of what they were making pre-9/11. In order to retain what few contractual upsides they’ve got left, they’ve systematically sold out what’s known in the business as “scope.” This is why regional airlines have gone from flying 19 seat prop aircraft to 96 seat jet aircraft. This is why 51% of all airline flights in the country are now operated by regional crews. The flying is slowly being outsourced in the name of cheaper labor and the bottom line. This made sense when every airline was in bankruptcy but now that airlines are making record profits once again too much has been given up to ever get back. It’s emblematic of the greater problems in our country. The reasons for all of the forced cuts that the middle and working class took during the recession have long sense been recovered but the now logarithmic dividends are all going to the top instead of being distributed to those who took the real loses. The bigger issue at play here is the labor unions representing the airline industry, namely the Air Line Pilots Association. ALPA represents the likes of United and Delta but they also represent regional carriers such as ExpressJet and American Eagle. That means that a single union is representing both the main labor group as well as the outsourced contractors. It’d be like if one union represented Apple employees in Cupertino as well as the kids in China who actually assemble the iPhone. So if young kids with stars in the their eyes and dreams of flying a jet keep taking these jobs which require $100K+ in training to obtain and pay only $20-30K annually, the companies never have any incentive to change the now status quo. More and more flying will go from the mainline carriers to the regional ones and before you know it regional airlines will be flying even larger aircraft for even less money. The nature of having a majority of labor operating as contractors is that management can play one side of the other. I used to fly the Dash 8 for Colgan Air which is a company that doesn’t exist anymore because we negotiated a contract which paid us somewhat reputable wages (first year FO pay was $27/hr compared to $22 at most airlines). I’m simplifying here, but this made the contract under which we operated those aircraft unsustainable and the company went out of business. Those aircraft are still flying on behalf of United Express but now by Republic Airlines who pay their pilots much less. If Republic were to ever sign a new contract improving their pilots’ pay or quality of life they would quickly have that flying stripped as well, all of those pilots would lose their jobs, and it would go to the next airline who offered to do it for a dollar cheaper. PSA just signed a new contract taking ridiculous pay cuts in exchange for new aircraft and more flying. There is no way to view this but a race to the bottom. As long as someone else is willing to do it for cheaper, everyone’s job is at stake. It’s a Pandora’s Box that once you open you can’t close. Eventually as this trend continues suddenly there’s no good jobs left. All of the jobs, from turboprops to 777s, are “shit jobs.” This is the path down which the industry is headed and until young pilots make a stand and refuse to work for less than they’re worth, it will continue. If I’m being too harsh with their dreams it’s because if someone’s not, their dreams will eventually become untenable and nonexistent.

This… These words right here… Are in part what I’ve been trying to articulate for several years regarding my immense frustration with the industry that I’ve chosen to found (at least for the time being) my livelihood on. Seriously spot on. Well said Mr. Heath; although I wish it weren’t so perfectly said, as it shows the seriously misguided and discouraging path we as an industry have placed ourselves on over the last several decades, and how difficult it’s going to be for us to get back to a holistically healthy place.

[jheath]

So everyone takes your advice: logically eventually there will be a shortage of experienced pilots. If they took your advice and only accepted jobs as jet pilots.. I don't know maybe only 5% of people that become pilots make it to the jumbo jets. But that's because they were willing to put up with the shit jobs first. I feel like you're bitter about flying. I'm not trying to piss you off but a lot of aspiring pilots follow your blog. So please be gentle with those dreams. Have a nice night.

I’m not bitter in the slightest. I had a job at one of the highest paying regional airlines in SkyWest, I left voluntarily, and I don’t miss it. I’m also well aware there are a lot of aspiring pilots who follow this blog because I field questions from them all the time and I’m always glad to respond with whatever advice I can offer based on my own experiences. But I refuse to lie to these young people by sugar coating the truth. And if they ever hope to realize their dreams they need to understand the realities of where the airline industry is headed in order to affect positive change.  

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem I’m describing. It’s not just the “shit jobs,” as you say. Major airlines have been hit hardest by salary concessions over the last decade. Most pilots at mainline carriers are making 40% of what they were making pre-9/11. In order to retain what few contractual upsides they’ve got left, they’ve systematically sold out what’s known in the business as “scope.” This is why regional airlines have gone from flying 19 seat prop aircraft to 96 seat jet aircraft. This is why 51% of all airline flights in the country are now operated by regional crews. The flying is slowly being outsourced in the name of cheaper labor and the bottom line. This made sense when every airline was in bankruptcy but now that airlines are making record profits once again too much has been given up to ever get back. 

It’s emblematic of the greater problems in our country. The reasons for all of the forced cuts that the middle and working class took during the recession have long sense been recovered but the now logarithmic dividends are all going to the top instead of being distributed to those who took the real loses.

The bigger issue at play here is the labor unions representing the airline industry, namely the Air Line Pilots Association. ALPA represents the likes of United and Delta but they also represent regional carriers such as ExpressJet and American Eagle. That means that a single union is representing both the main labor group as well as the outsourced contractors. It’d be like if one union represented Apple employees in Cupertino as well as the kids in China who actually assemble the iPhone.

So if young kids with stars in the their eyes and dreams of flying a jet keep taking these jobs which require $100K+ in training to obtain and pay only $20-30K annually, the companies never have any incentive to change the now status quo. More and more flying will go from the mainline carriers to the regional ones and before you know it regional airlines will be flying even larger aircraft for even less money. The nature of having a majority of labor operating as contractors is that management can play one side of the other.

I used to fly the Dash 8 for Colgan Air which is a company that doesn’t exist anymore because we negotiated a contract which paid us somewhat reputable wages (first year FO pay was $27/hr compared to $22 at most airlines). I’m simplifying here, but this made the contract under which we operated those aircraft unsustainable and the company went out of business. Those aircraft are still flying on behalf of United Express but now by Republic Airlines who pay their pilots much less. If Republic were to ever sign a new contract improving their pilots’ pay or quality of life they would quickly have that flying stripped as well, all of those pilots would lose their jobs, and it would go to the next airline who offered to do it for a dollar cheaper. PSA just signed a new contract taking ridiculous pay cuts in exchange for new aircraft and more flying. There is no way to view this but a race to the bottom. As long as someone else is willing to do it for cheaper, everyone’s job is at stake. It’s a Pandora’s Box that once you open you can’t close. Eventually as this trend continues suddenly there’s no good jobs left. All of the jobs, from turboprops to 777s, are “shit jobs.” 

This is the path down which the industry is headed and until young pilots make a stand and refuse to work for less than they’re worth, it will continue. If I’m being too harsh with their dreams it’s because if someone’s not, their dreams will eventually become untenable and nonexistent.  

[jordanblock]

This… These words right here… Are in part what I’ve been trying to articulate for several years regarding my immense frustration with the industry that I’ve chosen to found (at least for the time being) my livelihood on. Seriously spot on. Well said Mr. Heath; although I wish it weren’t so perfectly said, as it shows the seriously misguided and discouraging path we as an industry have placed ourselves on over the last several decades, and how difficult it’s going to be for us to get back to a holistically healthy place. 

[jordanblock]

An Autobiography

[gallery ids="25"] Like my own mini autobiography, each page stamped with another story. (at Omaha Eppley Airport (OMA))

[jordanblock]

Like my own mini autobiography, each page stamped with another story. (at Omaha Eppley Airport (OMA))

[deadpresidents]

Come on, how can you not love Pope Francis?

[jordanblock]

#PopeSelfie

[ilovecharts]

[jordanblock]

This is one of the most deafeningly honest songs I've heard so far this year.  Download the mixtape here (this song is pt. 2 of Pusha Man on the mixtape).  A song about growing up in the hood and a feeling that is rarely (if ever) discussed in other songs about growing up in the hood: fear. Un-glamourous, not fun, and usually just scary, for everyone. 

[jordanblock]

If you ever see anybody standing next to me, know that they're better than me at something.

Kanye West