Writer's High

Writing is Flying

There probably can be found no better example of the speculative tendency carrying man to the verge of the chimerical than in his attempts to imitate the birds, or no field where so much inventive seed has been sown with so little return as in the attempts of man to fly successfully through the air. —George W. Melville, 1903

[T]he justification of poetry is writing; you don’t conquer anything except things in yourself…The act of writing justifies poetry. —Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Above: Soaring, ascending, exploring—this is both why we fly and why we write.

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Takeoff 🛫

To write is to pilot a large, unwieldy plane.

At first, the very act seems improbable.

Impossible even—

how could tons of metal ever touch the sky?

Doubt acts like gravity, invisible yet everywhere,

its weight dragging you down with its dense force.

And yet, you try.

You train and test and tinker and learn.

You make sure everything is in order, that you have all you need to get where you’re going.

You fill your tank with fuel, warm up the engines, and find the right runway.

You ease into it; takeoff isn’t vertical, but gradual and horizontal.

It requires the right tarmac and trajectory to carefully balance weight, thrust, drag, and lift.

Then you punch the throttle and tear towards lift off.

You get enough speed and then you’re just going.

Up, up, and away.

Airborne ✈️

Gradually, then all at once you’re flying.

Through method and madness, the shining mass gets airborne and hits escape velocity.

Thrust beats drag, lift carries weight.

Though merely mechanics and mathematics, it sure does feel like magic.

It’s wondrous, miraculous even — an atmospheric walk on an invisible tightrope.

The details don’t really matter, in fact you don’t really understand them,

it’s just that you’re aerial.

For a while people thought it couldn’t be done.

But there it is, happening front and center: you hurtling through the sky with the help of your mind’s eye.

Portholes are portals to sights seldom seen, clouds scarcely touched.

You can only see as far as the horizon, but you can make the whole trip that way.

Damn if it isn’t sublime.

No stage is easy, but flight is less taxing, more effortless.

Here, autopilot takes over. You can just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

Sure, you’re keeping tabs and pushing buttons and gently adjusting but the plane is doing most of the work.

Though in the cockpit, you’re more passenger than driver, just watching the magic happen.

There’s always a bit of turbulence, but nothing you can’t handle.

You are the master of your fate, the captain of your soul.

Only your hands should be gripping the wheel.

Touchdown 🛬

Landing the plane is the hardest, most important part.

It demands hands-on attention.

Autopilot has no place here; to engage it would be suicide.

It can be seamless or fatal; the difference between safe arrival and twisted wreckage mere meters or milliseconds.

A last impression is a lasting impression—if this goes haywire, takeoff and flight were for naught.

And yet, when done just right,

when rubbery wheels kiss smooth tarmac and flaps extend from fixed wings,

the pressure is lifted and you can finally breathe again.

There safe and sound back on the ground.

Once on other side, standing beside the great steel whale,

you marvel at the miracle that just occurred.

You handled it, you wrested that beast up then back down.

You have finished the flight by keeping the faith.

And now, a quick layover before the next one.

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Per my about page, White Noise is a work of experimentation. I view it as a sort of thinking aloud, a stress testing of my nascent ideas. Through it, I hope to sharpen my opinions against the whetstone of other people’s feedback, commentary, and input.

If you want to discuss any of the ideas or musings mentioned above or have any books, papers, or links that you think would be interesting to share on a future edition of White Noise, please reach out to me by replying to this email or following me on Twitter X.

With sincere gratitude,

Tom