Beds and Airplanes

Have you ever looked over the edge of your bed before getting out of it? Been overwhelmed by a sense of foreboding while doing it? After all, facing life every day can be as daunting as jumping out of an airplane; if you're not careful you can end up splattered against the ground with such force as to be an unrecognizable mass of blood...

But on the other side there’s an undeniable exhilaration, an unlimited range of possibilities, the whole world is there, waiting for that first step, that as Tolkien said in The Hobbit, can lead you anywhere; all you really need to do is just step out the door into the road, but I would go even further back, all you need to do in life is simply take that first step out of your comfortable bed, and face the world. Well, jumping off an airplane can be a little like that too; or if you are slightly less daring, so is getting off a plane once it has landed: you’re in a far away place, even if far away is only a few hundred miles, maybe you have friends in this city, or maybe you don’t, but in either case you still have to face the hassle of the traveler.
There are many other similarities, if we take into account the fact that many people travel to fulfill a dream, like the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, or the Jewish trip to Jerusalem, or the Catholic pilgrimage to Rome, or if in a somewhat more mundane fashion a vacation to Europe or the US for a Latin American middle class family; these are dreams that many times have visited their owners while lying in bed, and as John Lennon once said “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one”, so lose your fear, and simply get out of bed or jump of the airplane, after all the world is out there waiting for you.