by Iaato » Mon 16 Apr 2007, 15:59:47
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AirlinePilot', 'A') sunrise viewed from my cockpit is one of those "moments" which I really relish now. I'm one of few human beings who gets to see it like we do. I know lots of folks travel, but there is something awe inpsiring about viewing it from up front, with a big window, versus out of the passenger ones.
I think what you're talking about here maybe that last fundamental defense mechanism of denial that protects your core beliefs. You clearly vest a lot of your core in your career as a pilot, it sounds like you're now getting ready to deal with that core belief and the change that is coming.
The good news? I agree totally with Jack that investments are going to be a place to capitalize if you can change your thinking. And people will probably get a lot healthier and happier as they get more physical. And we're going to be closer to the earth again, and lose that sense of anomie/displacement that we get from a culture disconnected from the environment. And peak oil will put some brakes on global warming, unless coal and wood-burning take its place. And we're all going to have to live a little more authentically. Closer to the land, face to face with our own food, needing our neighbors more, and hopefully more equity and justice. Injustices dealt with harshly but swiftly. People pulling their own weight, less useless paper shuffling (woohoo!). Bu-bye to wall street. And so on.
But you've got to take that final step from talking endlessly about when peak is going to be. Make that mental shift to committing to a new way. This board spends a stupendous amount of energy on hashing, rehashing, and mohashing when peak is. Enough already. It is reallllly clear that it's here, we're done, and even if we've got a few more years of plateau, so what? We're about 40 years late to be planning mass transit and living infrastructure--we shoulda' left our sweaters on and the solar panels on the White House along with Jimmy Carter.
It makes sense to milk your lucrative career for all it's worth, until it doesn't make sense. If I were an airline pilot, I'd be lining up a new career I could jump to pretty quickly if circumstances dictated that commercial flying was done for.