We have come so far and flown so high that it is nearly inconceivable we may have gone right beyond our areas of normal expansive and progressive interest. Flight. Ever since I was a child I have loved flight. Any kind of flying machine, or person who operated a flying machine, was of great and endearing interest to me. My father was in the military, which allowed our family to fly from duty station to duty station across the land and over oceans. And I loved it all, from the aluminum framed web seats, to the loud piston engines of mixed dependabilty...and even the boxed chicken lunches, which were commonly distributed. Although planes were not on time or always able to take off due to weather or mechanical problems, it was okay. Airports had few services and little in the way of entertainment while we waited, interminably, to fly.
But we waited and we waited willingly. We loved to fly, and we loved all the preparation that went into the process. We loved the unseen 'John Wayne' pilots, and we loved the stewardesses in their wonderfully stylish attire. We loved the big aluminum monsters that flew us through the air. Most of us knew them all, by airline, model description put out by the airline, and even the manufacturer.
So what the hell happened? United is losing money...again. The rest are losing money, or making little, while they shrink the number and length of their flights. And that is all over the world. The airlines are all complaining about falling revenue and passenger miles. And they are correct. So what happened?
We don't like to fly anymore. We fell out of love. Flying today is a bitter experience of humiliating phony service. It is a series of unending embarrassments, to those who fly economy, and almost intolerable in first class, which is so expensive as to be almost humorous. We have horrid parking at airports and worse intra-airport transportation. Just the act of dropping somebody off or picking them up is to be avoided at almost any cost. Homeland Security is rotten. Rotten attitudes and stupidly rotten procedures. More humiliation. Once aboard an aircraft it is just as bad. Less room for carry-on, if any room at all. Charges for everything. Crammed planes outfitted with ever smaller seats and spaces. Tickets that cannot be changed. Tickets that cannot be returned. Fear of being run through some security system and denied the right to fly. Fear of everything connected to flight or the geographics where it occurs.
We don't like to fly anymore. That is what happened to revenue and passenger miles. We attempt to avoid it. We take a car or a train, but, more and more, we don't go at all. And it is getting worse. With less disposable income, we fly only when we absolutely have to. Our hatred for the experience is obvious to all around us at the airport, making matters all the worse. We hate the security guards, even though we understand their work. We hate the airplane crews even though we know that it is not their fault. We hate the dirty unsafe equipment we see all the time.
And so, we are beginning not to fly. It is the airlines fault. It is our governmental leadership's fault. It is the caving in to vapid stupidity at fault. There are not going to be any 9/11's because no passengers will allow it anymore. Heard of any hijacked airliners lately? Me neither. But I think it is maybe too late for the current airlines to recover. Flight will have to change. We won't accept it the way it is. We will kill it off, by not going. Then something will replace it. Like cars. I noticed, the other day, that I was standing at a Borders bookstore magazine rack in the automobile section. I have always bought automobile magazines. I looked and then bought nothing. My love affair with that method of transportation is dying too. I used to love to read about powerful sports cars, the faster the better. Now I think they are a joke. I do not want to pay for gas to support a 500 horsepower engine. An engine that will spend all of its time idling in traffic, or in the very very unlikely event that I can drive fast at all, idling by the side of the road as the ever-more aggressive highway patrols write me expensive tickets, accompanied by idiotic morality tales about safety.
And the other car stuff is boring. Oh, I know we gotta have the hybreds and the electrics. It is for the good and economy of all, not to mention, green of all. But those cars are boring. You just can't read very far into an article about a Prius. So the cars are going to go too. We are driving less. We are driving less for the same reason we are flying less...because we don't like to do it anymore. We are so simple to figure out, if you take the time and trouble to study us...the people...the fabric of the culture. We work because we have to, and because we believe in work as a part of our foundation of worth. We play because we want to. We'll continue to drive the trucks and cars for work, and fly for work, but we won't do those things for fun anymore. Unless there is just no other way to get there, and then we may not go at all.
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...."as humans, being the product of a long evolutionary process, we really have three brains."
Politicians who win campaigns do so because they can speak to all three of those brains.
The Reptilian Brain
This is the part of the brain we share in common with reptiles like alligators and komodo dragons. The reptile brain knows one thing: survival.
The Reptile Brain only knows fight or flight, hunger and fear, attack or run. You can stimulate it with some right words, but it operates purely at the level of visceral stimulus/ response.
The Mammalian Brain
The brain expresses itself exclusively in the form of feelings, most often felt in the heart or the gut.
The Neo "New" Cortex is something we share with the higher apes. It is where we process abstract thought, words and symbols, logic, and time.
So based on the excerpt from Cracking the Code above, can you picture your opponent as the big wily reptilian creature with the sounds of cracking skin you have to tame to tell that they must vote for Barack Obama? Can you do it?
Hartmann, Thom (2008). Cracking the Code. San Francisco. Berrett Koehler.p. 56.
When the Declaration of Independent was written, the gentlemen involved did not underestimate their endeavor. They knew that many of them would not survive this stand. Indeed during the Revolutionary War, those that signed the document were especially targeted by the English. Their homes destroyed and if they or their families survived they were separated by the four winds and in many cases never saw each other again.
Still, some moments of hope were recorded. Once the signing was complete, Franklin stood and commented on a painting in the room. It showed a brilliant sun on the horizon. He said he'd often pondered whether it was a painting of a sunrise or a sunset.... he was now sure it was of a sunrise.
I've felt similarly looking at the 'embossed' logo on these webpages, the one with the Obama logo as the sun in a field and the eagle above. I've wondered if the eagle was landing or just taking to flight.
Perahps I've been slow to come to this understanding, some might say they've known that eagle was taking to flight since the keynote of 2004 or since February 2007. For my part, I am sure of it now, that eagle is taking to flight again. There is still hope that the USA can be the country the founding fathers intended.
