As one gets older, it happens that in the morning one fails to remember the airplane trip to be taken in a few hours or the lecture scheduled for the afternoon.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
My brain and body and nervous system, they see a plane ride, a long plane trip, as an opportunity to sleep with nothing coming in, nothing to do. I just go offline the minute I'm on the plane.
On overnight flights, I have trained myself to get to sleep almost instantly after takeoff. I always listen to the same audiobook on my iPod so my brain knows, regardless of time zone, that that voice means it's time for bed.
I've seen a lot of people buy my books and then fall asleep on the plane soon afterwards.
When I go on the plane to fly home, I'm literally capable of forgetting what I do for a job. That also comes about because I choose to take massive breaks between projects, and because I choose to do this ridiculous thing of keeping home, home.
I always save a huge book for a flight, because then you read it at both airports and on the plane and by the time you get home you're a quarter of the way through and it doesn't feel so unmanageable any more.
When you live and work in different time zones, you spend a lot of time on airplanes.
It's not unusual for me to wake up in the middle of the night and not know where I am. I take sleep medication to deal with all the flights. But I find it helps to eat at the same time every day.
I have to say that when you tour the world, obviously, the jetlags and different hours and ways of living and traveling, a lot of hours in the plane, and you wake up in the morning and you're not quite sure where you are, and it is very tiring.
There's almost nothing that distracts you from your day-to-day problems more than a trip. You're totally consumed in the present, you've got new sense impressions, you've got all this stuff to digest.
I notice when I'm on these trips, I read like mad. It's the only thing that seems to center me, bring me back to remembering who I am. Or forgetting who I am!