Page 32 - Dec18T

From the Flight Deck
by Kevin R. Dingman
30 • TWIN & TURBINE
December 2018
Compassionate or Curmudgeon
Flying and the Christmas hustle-bustle-burn-out.
COMPASSION — The feeling that arises when you are confronted with an- other’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering—showing sympathy and concern for others.
CURMUDGEON — A cranky, crusty, ill-tempered individual, full of stubborn ideas or opinions who is always angry, unhappy and seldom socializes with others.
Christmas is a festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world – and it can be maddening. Sadness, self-reflection, loneliness, guilt, headaches, overeating, fatigue and anxiety are common side effects of this, the most wonderful time of the year. The religious, mental and physical stresses of the holiday scramble should invoke an honest assessment of our fitness to fly and our capacity to play well with others. Fortunately, there are remedies for these holiday maladies that may include aviation and flying your airplane.
A Capitalistic and Commercialized Travesty
While preparing for gatherings and searching for presents (the less formal, colloquial term for gifts), we may feel unprepared, frantic and our gift purchases inadequate. Rather than recognizing the time, effort and thoughtfulness needed to negotiate the shopping center free-for-all as a celebration of Christianity and a way of expressing our appreciation of family, friendships and community, we may unwittingly succumb to the contemporary sentence imposed upon Christmas merrymaking and gift-giving as a capitalistic and commercialized travesty against Christianity and our sanity.
The preceding extra-long sentence and misperceived travesties against religion notwithstanding, the holidays can generate psychological ramifications that challenge both our social skills and fitness to operate machinery – especially flying machinery. Ironically, once we recognize the challenges, a higher level of involvement in the seasonal activities along with a commitment to selflessness can work Christmas miracles, even if we don’t live on 34th Street or in Bedford Falls.
First: Confronting the Challenges
Sadness. Christmas elicits an open-minded assessment of our persona; a soul-searching “instrument crosscheck” of our financial, physical and spiritual self. And it’s this self-reflection that may cause sadness if throughout the year, while in the pursuit of profit and a piloty-perfect-persona, there were losses and setbacks in life that we handled more like Old Man Potter and Mr. Scrooge than Rudolph, Santa or George Bailey. If so, our Christmas gift-giving can feel like, and appear to others, as an apology for our less than gracious behavior, rather than a bell-jingling reward for a newly winged angel.
Loneliness. Some people find themselves alone at Christmas time. For the first two-thirds of my airline career, I worked all holidays including Christmas and New Year’s. It was common to find myself in a hotel on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day – even on Groundhog Day. If you have ever “lived on the road,” you will understand the surreal reference to the 1993 movie starring Bill Murray. In addition to the above-average hotel noise at these times as others celebrate, waking up on Christmas morning in a hotel room (every year) holds a unique loneliness and feeling of isolation. My solution was to bring gifts for the entire crew for the Christmas morning departure from the hotel. Each of my crew would receive a gift with a personalized To-From tag. The anticipation of their surprise and gratitude helped to make the Eve and morning more like home. I have never figured out how to conquer that Groundhog Day sensation, however.