Images of Our World

Calgary, Alberta

Technology is an interesting phenomenon. It has unwittingly allowed us to have torrents of data thrown at us that overwhelms us and causes us to over-react to the slightest permutation anywhere else in the universe. We have just seen how fear is transmitted instantly through all the financial markets of the world, wiping out serenity and financial safety for millions. Two days ago I saw years of my savings disappear in the time it took me to take a two-hour bike ride. The past several days I have been able to watch the erosion of my financial future with a real time ticker tape on my wi-fi laptop here in the Canadian Rockies. It is bit surreal how tightly connected technology allows us to be to dynamics and circumstances we would have been oblivious to in the past.

On the other hand technology can allow us to experience magnificent things that are simply astounding and overwhelming, beyond the comprehension of nearly all the generations that have gone before us. Of the more than 100 billion people who have lived on earth, only a very tiny percentage of them ever had a chance of see awe-inspiring glaciers and ice-capped peaks from nearly eight miles up. I was re-admitted into that small club today, having used my wireless laptop to book a ticket onto one of those aluminum rockets that carries people over the Canadian Rockies in a matter of minutes at 38,000 feet. In the random computer allocation of seats I was given a window seat in the second row, well ahead of the leading edge of the wing. I could gawk with an unobstructed view as if it were my first time on a plane rather than my 547th.

Western Canada is cloaked in ice-clad granite massifs that tower above the eastern border of British Columbia, providing a stunning backdrop to Calgary in Western Alberta. A clear cobalt sky in late September afforded a breath-taking view of the dazzling white mantles of ancient ice. In great chasms, igneous walls hold emerald pools of glacial melt. These pristine high-altitude worlds know nothing of the financial chaos down below. Looking down on those knife-edge ridges one is reminded that perhaps there really is much more to life than watching financial markets freeze up. There is nothing like watching your own shadow race across the ice fields at 539 miles an hour. It sure beats using a horse. The last time I was on ice, it took half a day on a horse to cover ten miles.

International airports can be intimidating. There are vast numbers of people in them and people are often in a hurry to get to far away places. One does not think of them as playgrounds. 9/11 took away much of the magic that airports once afforded. Here in the Calgary International Airport about ten feet in front of me I am watching magic take place. A man is on the floor romping with his 3-year-old daughter. He has been doing this for perhaps twenty minutes. The playful shrieking and giggling as he plays hide and seek with her reminds me of the whole point of travel – creating memories of life lived well. This man is teaching his young daughter to live very well; one who will know the emotional security that comes from an attentive loving father.

Behind me four people have laughed non-stopped for more than an hour. The laughter has been infectious and the whole demeanor of the terminal was super-charged with a sense of life being lived well and fully. Norman Cousins would have been so pleased to know how these people were using humor to improve their own lives and unwittingly, the lives of all of us on the nearly fringes. Norman Cousins spent his life proving that humor could liberate people from terminal physical illness and the darkest of emotional angst.

Waves of experience pass through airports. It is now another very different crowd. No outbursts of loud laughter from young professionals but there are suddenly many young mothers with children in strollers. These children are all happily gurgling as they explorer the mysteries of airport fast food. There is a calm serene sensibility present. Happily, it is contagious.

Sunset is really impressive when it starts at 38,000 feet and ends at ground level while doing 530 miles an hour. The whole experience is a fast forward one with intense sensory changes. One can almost watch the sunlight’s color change from platinum to yellow to deep gold to a dim red. The clouds take on myriad shades or red, vermilion, lavender, orange, all set against a darkening cobalt sky. The fast approaching indigo edge of night overtakes the landscape below and suddenly the earth becomes a universe of small luminous galaxies as all the towns and cities turn on their electric suns.

Life is good today. I’ve been to the mountaintop in more ways than one. And I was able to pay for my meals today