There are lots of things you can do in small airplanes, and some of them are legal. Surprisingly, perhaps, one of the things you are allowed to do—or perhaps more accurately, not legally prevented from doing—is drop things from them. According to the regulation, as long as you are not in danger of causing damage to anyone or any structure on the ground, you can drop anything you like from an airplane. If you’re really bored, it might be fun to think of creative things you can throw from an airplane. Maybe we can make a bored game out of it.

Here’s what immediately comes to mind: an old toilet bowl, water balloons (these would change in shape as a result of changes in air pressure as they descended), anti-fascism leaflets, magazines from many years ago that people will discover and think they were discarded a long time ago, unexploded ordnance if I could get my hands on them and they were assured not to explode, old cell phones, and rolls of biodegradable toilet paper, just to watch the beautiful streaming effect.

I hope you were perspicacious enough to notice that not once did I mention dropping, let’s say, an old severely neurotic girlfriend who ran off with my best friend, although it would be perfectly legal, well, maybe not perfectly, unless she was already dead, and then I am not sure why it wouldn’t be perfectly legal. I didn’t mention anything like that in my list because the thought never even crossed my mind.

There are people who make a living dropping things from airplanes. All around the country there are places where you can go, take a lesson, strap on a parachute and even drop yourself from an airplane. I haven’t done that yet, and I don’t plan to. It’s nowhere near my bucket list, and wouldn’t be even if I had one.

There are people who spread pesticides onto fields of vegetables that some of us dare to eat, and them there is pretty fun piloting if you can get over the guilt. And then there are the pilots who spread human remains when they finally get from ashes to ashes.

Now that’s an interesting way to spend your time. I can imagine the scene now. Most pilots, sadly, are men, so excuse me for the gender bias you are about to encounter. Joe Pilot is sitting at the table in his suburban kitchen, sun harshly glaring through the kitchen window, drinking his coffee and waiting for the toast to pop up. How he loves the sound of that pop. How he knows he puts way too much butter on the sourdough toast, but hell, you only live once.

“Busy day today honey. Damn, I’ve got four urns scheduled, and two of them want to be spread on the hillside, one of them on the lake, and one of them on the pasture by the house. It’s crazy, you know, getting the timing just right.”

Sally’s finger momentarily stills as she lifts it from her cell phone screen and looks up, a bit bleary-eyed. “What did you say honey?”

Joe smirks, “Never mind.”

Sally suddenly takes it in. “But you’ll be respectful of course. Of the ashes I mean. I know you always are.“

Because this is often done at low altitudes, and can be tedious if you don’t want the ashes spread around your cockpit, the ash dispersal business can be dangerous; there have been instances of pilots meeting their ends as a result of stall-spin accidents while spreading—ironically, other pilots’ ashes. Of all the ways to die in an airplane, doing so while dispensing a dead pilot’s ashes has a sweet symmetry to it.

But, truth be told, I don’t plan on dropping anything from any airplane for any reason whatsoever.  It’s just plainly a bad idea.

My friend and occasional instructor Don Becker posted the above screenshot of a hilarious CNN chyron (the sometimes scrolling bar of information at the bottom of the TV screen).  In case you’re having trouble reading it, it says “Boeing 777 will struggle to maintain altitude once the fuel tanks are empty.”   You have to wonder who writes these things.

My son had the privilege of going to a college in which he studied the classics, and in so doing had to learn Greek.   I envy that, but not enough to study it myself.   I am too old, I think; perhaps not really, but as I look toward the end of my life and time seems thinner there seems to be a narrowing of choices.   In any case, he is not around right now for me to ask about this, but I have come across the kind of little linguistic gem that thrills me, and that is that the root of the word “enthusiasm” is the Greek enthousiasmos, which means “the God within.”   An enthusiast, one can say, is one inhabited by God.

And also, I am told, the ancient Greeks called those who created works of art “enthusiasts,” which makes perfect sense to me, as my own working definition of art is that which inspires (or deepens the breath), and in that sense brings God forth.   In the very rare instance in which I am grandiose enough to think that I have created art, either in writing or photography, or landing an airplane, I believe that somehow something spiritual has moved through me, and when engaging the art of another I believe that something spiritual moved through them and I was fortunate to catch a wisp of it.

There are many things in this life that I approach with enthusiasm, although I prefer to think, in line with the word’s origins, that these things approach me, or pass through me having emanated from some sort of spiritual place.   I recall one of my trips to Ireland in which I attended a copious amount of fleadhs— music festivals that were taking place all throughout the western part of the country.   From time to time, a single woman would come onto the often makeshift stage, sit upright in a chair, close her eyes, still her body, and begin to sing a capella.  Once, one of these women explained to the audience that this was the Irish way of singing, and it was based on the idea that the music did not emanate from within oneself, but instead it emanated from some spiritual other place and that the singer was merely the vessel. Perhaps this is at the core of all art, a kind of enthusiasm that doesn’t necessarily reveal itself in an effervescent moment of glee, but rather a lachrymose, mournful offering, a moment in which the “thou within” expresses itself.

In depression, the God within us goes on vacation. Enthusiasm disappears. The external world fails to spark anything within, because in a state of depression the pilot light that might spark enthusiasm is all but extinguished.   One knows the demons of depression are departing when enthusiasm returns.   It may be a simple feeling that a cup of tea might hit the spot right now, or a renewed interest in seeing, hearing, or making art.   In that sense, the level of one’s own enthusiasm becomes an indicator of one’s general well-being, a touchstone of sorts letting us know the degree to which we are engaged in living this one precious life.

These days I find myself enthusiastic about a lot of things I do, but often the enthusiasm doesn’t show up until I find myself in the midst of it.   I get a thrill when I get in the cockpit, a familiar place, and eagerly go through the steps needed to light up the engine, spin the propeller, and roll down the runway. I get a spark of enthusiasm when I am sitting with a client, somehow manage to connect to their pain, and join them in a way that sparks their enthusiasm.   Then there is a moment of healing, and there is deep satisfaction in having that shared experience.   I get a thrill now when I look at great visual art, or hear a great song, although frankly, those are few and far between.   The old songs, sadly, don’t do so much for me anymore, unless perhaps it is Lightfoot or Janis Ian at their heights.

I got into a little tiff with a colleague a while back, who wanted to define the work we do on a website as “the science of behavior.”’ I objected to the word science in this context, because, while arguably accurate, I thought the use of the word on a website in a marketing context was misleading.   It was as if calling something a science rather than an art made it more legitimate.   If we understand art, though, the way the ancient Greeks did, and called artists “enthusiasts,” then to me it is both a compliment and an honor to be known as someone who practices the “art of behavior analysis.”

To practice behavior analysis, fly an airplane, engage a book, poem or story with enthusiasm– to do anything with enthusiasm, elevates ourselves to more spiritual beings.  It signifies to me that we are bringing passion and gusto to our work, and so long as that passion doesn’t blind us to the world at large, that can only be a good thing.

“I like coffee, I like tea.   I love the java jive and it loves me.” I am proud to say that those lyrics, written to match the great Ben Oakland tune, were written by a cousin of mine.   Pride in this as in most situations is unwarranted of course, given that  Milton and his brother Irving Druckman (who changed their names to Drake) granted me through their progenitors only a small fraction of their DNA, and even so, I am not sure pride would even then be relevant.   I do love music, and struggle to create it, but more to the point of this little missive, I really love coffee.

I didn’t always.   I really didn’t acquire the taste until some time in high school, when I used it primarily as a drug to stay awake while working the graveyard shift at Denny’s and putting up illicit real estate signs by the side of the road on Friday nights and then picking them up on Sunday nights in Orange County, California. It has, over the years, developed into my drug of choice, so much so that, in all candor, I need to stop writing these words right now at 8:14 in the morning so that I can go into the kitchen and brew some up.   Otherwise, I won’t be able to make it to the next paragraph and you will feel an awkward abruptness and wonder why I even brought this up in the first place.   Be right back.

Having suffered a variety of health problems for my entire adult life, I have often wondered if drinking coffee is good for one’s health—mine in particular. So, curious bloke I am wont to be, I have tried to follow the literature.   Some of this curiosity, by the way, has been driven by knowing that my Mormon acquaintances, along with the occasional Seventh Day Adventist, refrain.   Adventists don’t drink coffee primarily because one of the church’s founders and arguably one of the most colorful figures in American Protestantism told them not to.   Besides being the author of 40 books and allegedly the most translated female author of all time, Ellen White was a vegetarian who thought tobacco might be a really unhealthy, nasty habit.   That was pretty bold at the time, and she sure had that right.   But this is what she said about coffee in 1890:

“Coffee is a hurtful indulgence. It temporarily excites the mind to unwonted action, but the after-effect is exhaustion, prostration, paralysis of the mental, moral, and physical powers. The mind becomes enervated, and unless through determined effort the habit is overcome, the activity of the brain is permanently lessened.” 

Well, to my mind, she got a lot of that right as well.   Said another way, and not to be too disparaging of a great forward thinker, it’s not a good idea to drink coffee because it works.

The science pertaining to coffee is pretty interesting to me.   The research is copious, and most of it would lead a rational person to think that drinking coffee is a pretty good idea.   The health benefits, it seems to me, far outweigh the liabilities.   Take, for example, this recent study published in the Journal of Gerontology.   The researchers looked at the coffee-drinking patterns of more than 6,400 women aged 65 and older, and found that those who drank more than the median level of caffeine were significantly less likely to develop dementia or any kind of cognitive impairment than those who drank below the median amount.   Those in the “above-median” group drank an average of 261 mg. of caffeine per day, the equivalent of about two to three cups of coffee.   I am not quite 65, although I am rapidly approaching, and not a woman, nor have I played one on TV, but I am quite encouraged by these results.

I will confess that my coffee habit has, at various times in my life, gotten out of hand. When I averaged over 10 cups of coffee a day, even though in those days my blood pressure was low, I thought that even I had taken it too far.   I self-imposed a year’s abstinence, and after about a week of headaches I was really fine.   In fact, I had barely noticed a difference, perhaps because at 10 cups a day tolerance had set in and the coffee no longer had much effect.   Nevertheless, when the year was up, I got right back to it and here I am, years later, drinking about 4 cups a day.   It is still my drug of choice, and hopefully, along with greasing these fingers it will ward off the dementia that eventually got the best of my dad.   That brilliant lyric from “Java Jive” says it all: “A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup—boy.”

In the nautical tradition from which aviation emerged, I call my airplane “she.”   She’s a rather beautiful ship, I think—sleek and sexy, with long wings and I could go on but the metaphor becomes too suggestive and I have already taken it too far.

Boys often call their toys “she” for a reason.   There is an erotic quality to the relationship men have with their airplanes, cars, drill presses, and for geeks like me, even their books.  Sure, I don’t call my Encyclopedia of Philosophy “she,” opting instead for the neutral “it,” but in all candor, I will confess that books for me have long had a sensual, if not erotic, connection.

I don’t know exactly how or when it started. I had once heard that you could often tell a book is going to be a good read by the effort that went into its binding, the selection of the paper and cover, and even the type style.   The way it worked, I heard, was that publishers will invest more money and design effort in books they have confidence in, but I don’t know if any of that is true.

What I do know is that when I encounter a book, I will touch it, caress the cover and flip through the pages, gently feeling the nap of the paper.   If the paper has ragged edges, it is going to be a special book indeed.   I will admit here and now that occasionally, if no one is looking, I might bring the pages up to my nose as though I were smelling a rose.   By smelling a book, you can tell if it has been inappropriately stored (it shouldn’t have a musty smell), and if the ink is fresh off the press. Just as cigarette makers spike their tobacco with addictive stuff, I wonder if printers spike their ink to make it somewhat intoxicating. Wine connoisseurs, I am told, can tell a lot about wine by its bouquet, although the only thing I know about wine is that I love the word terroir.   Paper also has a bouquet, and if you’re good enough at it, you might be able to read its terroir as well.   Central New Jersey, the lake district no doubt, 1986, a good ink year indeed.

While it may be true that you can’t tell a book by its cover, you can tell a cover by its cover, for a book without its cover is like emerging from a shower on a cold day with no towels or robe nearby, or to remain aviation-focused, like flying an airplane with its cowling missing.   It probably can be done, but for several reasons it’s probably not a good idea.    The cover won’t reveal the soul of a book, but a nice cover can sometimes be a clue to what’s inside.

When I say that boys have an erotic connection to their toys, I mean that quite literally, in the sense that “eros” renders in English simply as love. “Eros” as a god is right up there– some say the child of Chaos, from whom the universe emerged.   Yes, in some mythologies, we go right from Chaos to Eros, in order to bring some sense into the world.

I think about love a lot, for reasons I won’t go into here, and sometimes when I think about love I think about it as connection.   We love that which we desire to be connected to, or connect to that which we desire.   But nowadays we often associate eroticism with sexuality, stemming from the Freudian notion of libido.   Libido is simply the life-force, the energy that contains both sexual and aggressive impulses, the impulses that drive survival.

That is why, I believe, boys often call their favorite toys by female pronouns. They  want to get close to them, connect with them, driving, as they do, their life-source, toward and away from their mothers—the female who, very literally, was their original life-source.

Unfortunately, I don’t know enough women who are pilots to know whether they call their toys by male or female pronouns.   But if I did, I am not sure what I would make of it.   Could it be simply that they were co-opted into a male tradition? Could it be that women in general are socialized to be more gender fluid? Whatever the explanation, for those of us who care about such things as gendered pronouns, it might be interesting to know.   For the rest of us, well, I apologize for bringing it up.

Although it may appear so to the casual observer, I don’t believe a gang of angels is responsible for lifting my or any airplane gently off the earth and into the atmosphere.   I attribute that near-miraculous feat primarily to the difference in air pressure that occurs above and below the wing due to its shape, although I do reserve the belief that someday, as knowledge of physics widens, angels might be found to eventually have something to do with it.   For some reason, I imagine that angels giggle profusely, and I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point in the future the practitioners of physics discover that indeed, in that realm just beyond the reach of human senses, fulsomely winged messengers are having a joyous time watching humans wrestle their tin crafts off the ground and clumsily bringing them down again.  Well, maybe I would be surprised after all, but I would also feel thrilled and redeemed.

My dad was a professed atheist, and he would probably scoff at my belief in angels from wherever he is or isn’t right now.   We argued about it on several occasions, his dismissal of the existence of any sort of Higher Power resting principally on the view that no Higher Power worth worshipping would permit something like the Holocaust.   I found his views on the agency of God unpersuasive, but I certainly respected the angst-tinged lens through which he came to view the world.   He saw considerably more misery in his one wild and precious life than have I, privileged as I was primarily as a result of his determination.

For many reasonable folks, believing in science precludes a belief in angels. But, along with Francis Collins – the noted geneticist, former NIH director, rock musician, motorcyclist and self-proclaimed born-again Christian, I see no conflict between the two.   In “The Language of God,” Collins persuasively argues for the compatibility of science and religion.   In public interviews he has famously derided agnosticism as a “cop-out,” although he makes exceptions for those agnostics who have deeply considered the evidence and still have come to no conclusion.

Science elucidates a lot, and I am both a fan and a practitioner of its methods.   But science fails miserably in its attempt to explain those things that its methods are simply incapable of explaining.   Science does well explaining the “what” of things, but is inept at explaining the “why.”   It can tell us how to get places, but not where we should be going. Its inability to answer questions does not, as some casual agnostics would prefer, make the questions less significant.

I grieve a little when I see what has become of the profession in which I have spent my entire adult life.   The word psychology itself derives from the Greek roots meaning study of the psyche, the psyche being “breath, spirit, or soul.”  The earliest reference to the word in English, according to the venerable OED, was in 1694 in Dutch physician Steven Blankaart’s “Physical Dictionary,” in which he refers to “Anatomy, which treats the Body, and Psychology, which treats of the Soul.”  Yet these days the study of the soul has transmogrified into the study of the brain.   I am sorry, but no collection of electrons firing through synapses soaked with gamma-aminobutyric acid will explain the feeling I get when I watch my daughter dance, hear Frankie Valli shift into falsetto, or lift off the ground in my airplane.

I am not intending here to support notions of Intelligent Design, although even the prolific astronomer and atheist Sir Fred Hoyle admitted that “Life arising through random chemical reactions is as likely as the assemblage of a 747 by a tornado whirling through a junkyard.” Or, as noted physicist R. Piccioni stated, “Randomly replicating the DNA of the simplest known life is about as likely as drawing the ace of spades (randomly from a deck of cards) 119,000 times in a row.”  While I don’t own enough hubris to even hypothesize how life as we know it came to be, I will assert my view that knowing how it came to be is not something likely to be uncovered by the tools of science.

No one said it better than the astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, who concluded his book “God and the Astronomers” with this pearl: “At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

When the kids were small, we took them to Ireland and stopped at the rugged Cliffs of Moher.  The cliffs are a popular tourist site, dropping precipitously 700 feet to the ocean, and extending eight miles wide.   (They make an appearance in the wonderful film “The Princess Bride” as the “Cliffs of Insanity.”) I pleaded, practically on my hands and knees, for my wife and kids not to get anywhere close to the edge, but they forged ahead while I stayed far back and worried like a frantic hen.   I stayed close to the parking lot because I am afraid of heights (as I have learned is the case with many pilots) and when it comes to the edge of anything you will generally not find me too close to it.

Even the relatively tame paths over the bluffs near our home in Northern California are difficult for me. (Signs that say “Danger: Bluffs Crumble” don’t help.) I work at it, and sometimes I do fine, but occasionally some implacable ghost residing in the ether will crop up and set off a panic attack that can only be eased by moving as close to Chicago as I can.

Despite my fear, and possibly because of it, I have a certain respect and even attraction to places that reside close to the impossible or unadvisable. I do understand that, for many reasons, the edge seems to be where it’s at.   In his handbook “Enlightenment Step by Step,” Amit Ray, who found his way from the world of engineering to the rarefied and potentially more lucrative air of spiritual mastery, wrote “You may fall down when you dance on the edge but edge is the source of all miracles and mystery.”

I can appreciate the falling down part, but the edge actually being the source of all miracles seems hyperbolic to me.  Some miracles, maybe, but all of them?   I have no doubt that, sitting here in my favorite chair in my living room, as far away from any edge I know about, a miracle is about to happen any second now.   It just did.   And hopefully, I will be taking quite a few more breaths in the days to come.

But I do realize that when one is in the middle of things, centered and on course, life is predictable and a dreary monotony sets in.   Humans are novelty-seeking critters, and it is the tangling with the unknown, forbidden, unknowable, and even dangerous that creates the anxiety and tension that is the wellspring of emotional, intellectual and spiritual growth.

When I travel to foreign places, my general routine is to leave the comfort of my room and head out into unknown streets.  I intentionally travel just far enough to become disoriented.   It is on the edge of knowing where I am, somewhat lost, that my heart rate picks up and my adrenaline fuels just enough nervous energy to drive the vigilance that is at the root of discovery.   It is the venturing forth beyond the endeavor that turns a venture into an adventure.

Beauty resides on the edges.   To call someone “plain” is not a compliment.   A face that lives either on the edge of ruin or the edge of pedestrian captures interest and suggests depth, because it is an invitation of sorts.  Come, it says mysteriously, to the sweet tedium of the average; we are not there yet, but it will come.   Or, on the edge of ruin, we are invited to hold on to the precious glimpses of youth, or the luscious narratives of this person’s past; true stories, undoubtedly, more incredible than fiction.

It is just so with personalities. We tend to be intimidated by those who are too clever, or find them remote, but instead prefer those who function on the edge of clever, showing brief moments of brilliance now and then.   We like humor, don’t we, but please, not while we’re trying to be serious.   We like to be understood deeply, but appreciate a break now and then. It’s nice to just float for a while, sit and drink coffee and talk about what cousin Sara might be doing in Seattle.

There is a red line on most airspeed indicators which indicates the “never exceed” speed.   Exceeding that airspeed threatens the integrity of the airframe.   Most pilots I know like to nudge as close as they can to that speed.   We like to see how fast we can go without breaking the airplane. It is in the flirting with disaster that we learn our limits, and when we master our limits then perhaps contradictorily we know better how to stay safe.

Of course my wife and kids did just fine at the Cliffs of Moher, in spite of my protestations and the fact that, among the many wonderful characteristics of the Irish, they don’t seem to be too fond of fences.   Master Death may reside just one small step off that cliff, and that is a truth that must be faced.    A fence may temporarily shield us from the inevitable, but it will also keep us comfortably away from the edge.  Yet,  it seems, the edge is where life comes most fully alive.

In March of 1967, James Robert Ringrose was arrested by Japanese police in Osaka, Japan while attempting to pass bad checks.   It turns out he happened to be on the FBI’s “10 most wanted fugitives” list, and when extradited to Hawaii he told the waiting FBI agents that he had been saving something for them for several years and that now he needed it.   He reached into his pocket and presented them with a “Get Out of Jail Free” card from the Monopoly game.

Pilots have their version of the “get out of jail free” card as well. It’s called an Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) report, and it allows pilots to reveal their own violations before they get caught and sent off to jail.    The reports go to the folks at NASA, where the information is collected, and then, while keeping the identity of the pilots confidential, sent along to the FAA in order to point out the potential dangers in the system.   As long as the violation wasn’t intentional, if the FAA comes after you and you reach into your pocket, Ringrose-style, and show them the receipt for making the report, the FAA will not be permitted to prosecute you.

The program was created in 1975 after an airline accident involving a misunderstanding of procedures known to pilots but kept hidden from the FAA.  It was a rather elegant solution to the age-old problem instantiated by what happened when I was four years old and lit a book of matches in my closet right underneath the highly flammable plastic dry cleaning cover.   My father found the matches, lined up his three kids, and “inquired” as to whom among us was the guilty party.   Even though my father eventually resorted to saying he wouldn’t punish the one who fessed up, that just wasn’t a big enough guarantee, so, sad to say, he went to his deathbed almost 90 years later never knowing that it was I who lit the matches.

I might have fessed up if I really understood and trusted that my dad would forgive, although I doubt it.   The shame of having endangered the family and the guilt for having done something wrong undoubtedly would have defeated the courage needed to confess.   Yet I still can’t help being impressed with the deep power of forgiveness.   The Old Testament context in which I was raised sadly doesn’t emphasize interpersonal forgiveness, but the New Testament, via Jesus’ injunction to forgive “seventy times seven times”—presumably because there were no calculators in those days, is rather pivotal throughout.   This is especially true, Luke tells us, if there is repentance involved, which can, I suppose, come in the form of a genuinely offered ASRS report.

I don’t know, but I doubt that the governing forces involved in creating aviation’s “get out of jail free” card were motivated by Christian virtues when they decided that this would be a good idea.   They must have realized, though, that in order to improve safety it was important to gather as much data as they could in order to best understand just what could be done to improve the system. Danger lies in the hollows of deception, and deception arises in an environment of fear, guilt and shame.

Some will say that there is no such thing as a get out of jail free card in real life; karma will rear itself sooner or later.   But if there were one, I imagine it would function much like an ASRS report, as only an invitation to the healing by shedding some light.   It would be nice if, Ringrose-style—I could offer up a get out of jail free card to others I have hurt or wronged.   In doing so, I don’t imagine I will get out of jail free, but perhaps if offered with genuine repentance and a true commitment to doing better, in some small way I can contribute to making the skies a safer place in which to fly.