I’m at work today and was chatting with the mechanic. It got me thinking.

Man, this job sure requires me to place a lot of trust in other people.

This led to me wondering What makes someone want to be an aircraft mechanic?

This led to I sure hope the answer is ‘not being as brave or good-looking’ as pilots.

But I backed off that and landed on Flying the aircraft requires more trust in other people than mechanics usually possess.

There are surely other measures of trust or, more broadly, hope. But what I mean to call attention to is the why behind the quality of the trait that pilots necessarily possess.

Once considered, I say one must conclude that it isn’t merely the mode of travel, but the fact of travel that betrays the pilot’s special embodiment of hope. From the functioning of the aircraft, to the people at the (planned or unplanned) destination not killing you upon arrival, the pilot embodies hope.

From another angle, consider that Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejuidce, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”

That’s got all the right words, but it’s backwards. From where I sit, “Prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness are fatal to travel.”

But, of course, by travel I mean more than the movement of the body from one location to another. I count as travel learning—even via books. I count attending different cultures’ events (ie, Chinamen moving to Chinatown is not travel, but one religious Chinaman’s visiting of a different religion’s Chinaman family—all who live in the same apartment building is) as travel. There are probably other meanings I would count.

Or not.

So I only mean three things count as travel. (1) travel, (2) learning, and (3) dually (i) meeting people who look identical to yourself but are, in fact, not you and (ii) meeting people who look nothing like you and finding out they are, in fact, your identical twin. And the connection which binds these three is not travel, but hope.

Do you see?