Long, winding, and unavoidable

When I graduated high school in 1976, the bulk of my classmates spent the summer preparing to go off to college in the fall. I took a different road and spent the bulk of my time playing in a band.

A few years later when my former friends and neighbors were launching their careers in business, education, and journalism, I continued to resist the social pressures that drive so many of us to at least attempt to be normal human beings with an actual job. I continued to spend nights and weekends playing in a band.

By the time my peer group were getting married and having their first kids, I was off to New York City — again, with a band. We made a record, set our sights on the stars, and ultimately failed miserably in the financial sense.

In every other way imaginable, those were some of the most satisfying, thrilling years of my life. They were also maddening, frustrating, and occasionally terrifying.

Given the chance to do it all again, the changes I’d make would be small and insignificant. I’d subject myself once again to the poverty, the sub-standard housing, the missed meals, the late nights, and the questioning looks and comments from friends, family, and well-meaning but horribly misinformed casual observers who all uttered a variation on the theme, “What are you doing with your life?”

The only answer I had then is the same answer I’d offer now. I’m living it, as best as I can, to the fullest.

All this ran through my mind as I lounged on my living room couch this Thanksgiving weekend, watching nearly eight hours of video, lovingly recut and presented by famed director Peter Jackson. The Beatles were back in their prime on my TV and I loved every minute of it. Even the horrible parts were wonderful.

Maybe you have to live through that sort of thing to understand the full spectrum of emotion that comes with doing the work. With living that life. With being tied tightly together with a handful of others who annoy, frustrate, badger, thrill, and thoroughly complete you in ways others just can’t understand.

In my life, I eventually got a normal-ish job. I became an electronic technician, then a full-time flight student, then a pilot, an A&P mechanic, a writer, and a business owner. As I say, my pursuits became normal-ish, but never really fell in line with the stable, respectable careers my classmates pursued and enjoyed.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So, what’s the link to aviation, you might ask? Everything, really.

The reason so few will get the full emotional content of Jackson’s “Get Back” documentary about the Beatles is the same reason the passenger in 16D doesn’t fully understand the challenges or satisfaction of flying an approach down to minimums into a brisk crosswind. They’ve never done it. They’ve only watched from a distance.

The difference in experience between a participant and an observer is huge. Massive. The gulf between the two is so wide it defies the English language to fully articulate the size and scope of the expanse separating the two.

Pursuing a career in aviation, or picking it up as a hobby, is every bit as ridiculous a move as setting your sights on stardom and riches via the stage. Few are supportive of our early efforts. Yet we persist.

Then again, it is indescribably satisfying when that first solo flight works out, when a pilot in training rolls back onto their home ramp following a long cross-country flight that kept them tossing and turning in bed the night before, or when they leave the Designated Pilot Examiner’s office with a clean sheet of white paper in hand.

So few have walked that short distance across the ramp, climbed into an aircraft, and flown away under their own direction that the average man or woman on the street just can’t conceive of what it must be like. They can watch it on video, but they won’t really understand what they’re seeing. They can ride along in the seat beside the pilot, and they’ll still miss 90% of what lights the pilot’s fire.

Watching and doing are entirely different things.

Paul McCartney sang eloquently about transitioning a lengthy, circuitous route, only to ultimately arrive at the destination of his beloved (see how I craftily avoided a copyright infringement claim there?), just as you and I and every other pilot on earth had to zig and zag our way from a starting point of almost total ignorance to the ultimate goal of taking the Pilot in Command position of an aircraft in flight.

We are a rarity, the Beatles and pilots. Sure, there were only four of them and there are hundreds of thousands of us. The parallels are there, just the same.

Those who fly do something others merely dream of doing, but shy away from because of the perceived risks. And those risks aren’t just financial. They include the possibility of not being good enough. Not being smart enough, or brave enough, or any one of a thousand imagined failings that most folks fear they’ll discover about themselves if they step outside their comfort zone.

Outside our comfort zone is where the magic happens. You and I have had a handful of truly horrible landings in our time. The Beatles were booed now and then. So what? We, and they, went back to the starting point and did it again. Better this time, with hopes for improvement along the way.

Like the Beatles, we will all come to the end of our run, eventually. Perhaps we’ll finish up by choice. Or perhaps that last flight will be a surprise to us — an ending that’s forced upon us against our will, but with such resolve that the end can’t be avoided.

Hopefully, we will be as successful as the Fab Four were in establishing a solid second act. Something worthwhile we can be proud of as we slide from the left seat to the back seat, as we all must do one day.