Costello:   Well then, who’s on first?

Abbott:  Yes.

One thing that has always confused me about the way aviators use words is the fact that, in aviation, the word “ceiling” refers to the bottom of a cloud.   The bottom of a cloud, of course, creates a ceiling for what is visible beneath it, but if you are in the cloud itself or flying above it, the ceiling is actually the floor, or the bottom of the cloud.

Similarly, the word “top” typically refers to clouds, so the “top” of the cloud is actually the “ceiling” of the cloud, but you are not allowed to say that, lest you confuse the word by taking it out of its proper context.   Now pay attention.  The top of the cloud, of course, looks very much like a floor if you are flying above it, but to call it that would confuse the word “floor” because that word also has a special meaning in aviation; it refers to the bottom of the kind of airspace you may be flying through.  That floor, by the way, is often hundreds of feet above the ground.

Just in case you are having trouble following, the point here is that assuming anything is what it appears to be can get you in trouble.  Paul Simon tries to make that clear, but fails almost as much as I do, in his classic song “One Man’s Ceiling is Another Man’s Floor.”   There are mysterious things going on in the lobby and in the alleyway, and eventually someone calls his name, and we are warned to remember that one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.   But it’s a great song anyway.

Maybe I should say it like this:  Have you ever been down so low that the bottom looks like up?   Have you ever walked up the down staircase?  Or for fans of Screaming Yellow Zonkers (google it), do you walk to school or carry your lunch?

More to the point, have you ever walked into a bar, eyed a beautiful single woman sitting alone, start to walk toward her and then see the guy she was with pop out of nowhere (probably the bathroom)?  I haven’t either, but I saw it on TV.

Here’s what I am saying.   There are people who grow up in New York City and never even think about a piano falling on top of them because they are so worried about stepping in dog poop that they never look up.

More to the point, Lenny Bruce used to say that he didn’t believe in heaven and hell because heaven was supposed to be “up there” and hell was “down there,” but if the earth revolves then if it was 2:00 in the afternoon and hell was down then when it was 2 in the morning hell would be up.   I confess that I too have gotten heaven and hell mixed up a few times in my life, but that’s entirely another story.  Or two.

Pilots go up and down the same way people do in big office buildings, which is to say they use their elevators.   While airplanes with autopilots actually do use buttons, most of the time pilots go up and down by pushing forward (trees get bigger) or pulling backward (trees get smaller).   Sometimes when I am driving a car my assumptions get in the way.  Because of my short arms, I do like to adjust the steering wheel distance, and whenever I pull the wheel toward me I can’t help but think the front of the car is going to start pointing upward and I better push the wheel forward so that the car stays on the ground.   I am always surprised when the steering wheel moves back and forth and the car stays on the ground.

It is easy to forget that one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor if we get too stuck obsessing that our world is the whole world.   It comes with the territory of assuming anything too much.   I see it when white guys try to act like black guys around black guys because they think they are being cool but are really assuming that a black guy actually acts like a black guy.   Or, when looking into a baby’s rocker and speaking “baby talk” to babies I can’t help but think the baby is thinking that this adult person must have misplaced his own rocker.

I have yet to fly aerobatically because even the thought of a roller coaster makes me nauseous, but I imagine aerobatic pilots know better than anyone (except maybe scuba divers) that what appears up for one second will be down the next.   Clearly, the bottom of a cloud (its floor) paints a ceiling for the clear sky beneath it.  But if we always have our feet on earth we will never even think about that, and leave ourselves vulnerable for things falling from the sky.  And the last thing we would want is to be hit over the head by our own expectations.

–Written August, 2015, before “chemo-brain,” although it sure sounds like the fog had already come in.