Tbilisi airport. 04:30 AM. When traveling I love these early departures and longer layovers in the airports. It is truly a special state I can get in while waiting for the next plane. Especially when traveling alone I can full immerse in the experience of liminality, indulge into the in-betweenness, dissolve of my default function just simply be. Nothing has to be answered, nothing has to change, no pressure, judgement, uncertainty. Once you passes the gate, did security check, proved to be admirable on the premisses of the liminal space, you enter a zone where minimum decisions are expected from you. It feel light, accepting and somehow meaningful. The sense of purpose is very tangible, you know you will depart in some hours, you are not worried if the plane won’t come and you need to fight for it. It is done. You don’t even have to trust, just be. As I am looking through the window I can see three planes flying to Warsaw, Munich and Yerevan. I can see small figures of men, moving luggage, driving their little vehicles next to the giant flying machine. I and allowing myself to zoom out and imagine the system that facilitates the process. Complex chain of interconnected dots all working together in a swift coordination. It is fascination to think about it, I start to feel how my mind starts to stretch while I am engaging into these mental gymnastics. I must admit I enjoy this feeling a lot, inability to grasp the complexity. In these moments I get confirmation that it will never get bored, no matter how good I will become at thinking, how much I know, I wont be able to understand. It feels liberating. I can’t have an ambition to solve it, and free of it only joy from curious exploration and engagement remains. Pressure subsides, perfectionism subsides, desire of completion subsides, only the movement within remains.
I think the nice thing about flying is that you as an individual is confronted with the complexity in a very intimate way. I intellectual level we know that everything we encounter in out daily lives is also a part in a complex structure, yet due to the pace of time and the amount of structures that intertwine with each other in out daily routines makes it difficult to notice ourselves being within this complexity. We are in it yet realisation of it is obstructed by the mundane. Flying kind of takes a small part of that complexity, narrows the amount of systems interacting to a set of interrelated complexities united under one umbrella. In my opinion it allows to go meta on it and therefore gain an experience I was describing earlier.
Getting a sneak peek into the system, unable to understand, I realise how many people where involved in the process of making it. Physical and intellectual labour merge together to build this machine which enable me to cover thousands of kilometres and be home before lunch. I am not questioning the role of a collective in this process. There is no notion of individualism or ego self present in the picture. It is irrelevant in the face of complexity. I keep on wondering how did we ended up rejecting the idea of being indivisible part of a larger whole. It seems rather obvious that nothing can be done, achieved or experiences outside of relations.
The story from The Trial by Franz Kafka comes to mind. It goes about a gatekeeper and a man who is waiting to enter the door of Law but he is not allowed to do do. After many of waiting the man gets older and just before his death he asks the gatekeeper why no one ever came to seek Law except him. And the gatekeeper answers no one but you could gain admittance through this door, since this door was intended only for you. I am now going to shut it. My, rather simple and free of social/political perspective, interpretation of this parable leads to the idea that the we are always at a door, that will connect us with a higher Law, we just not always enter it. We sit next, waiting to be given a permission instead of realising that we are already in it and everything that can be found behind is already belongs to us. There is no point in rejecting and deceiving yourself into a omni-powerful individual, just look around.