“Today”

I woke up in a hotel in San Francisco. It was built in 1923 and has survived all manners of innovation in SF’s financial district. I took a shower with clean water pumped from a purification plant, whose source is a watershed located in Yosemite National Park over 160 miles away. I then rode the elevator downstairs and got a cup of coffee, the beans of which were from Guatemala. Planted, grown, harvested, packaged, shipped, ground, and brewed – all culminating in my 8 ounce cup of coffee.

I then took a cab to the airport, got to my gate, and called my girlfriend, who was 9 hours ahead of my time zone, using a pair of noise cancelling, bluetooth Bose headphones. This model has 4 microphones that detect and isolate my voice amidst a crowded, buzzing airport terminal. It also lets me control the amount of ambient noise I cancel from my environment. It was like my girlfriend and I were on our own little planet.

I then boarded a United airlines flight bound for Chicago. The plane was a 737-800, built by Boeing, which started in Washington D.C. and whose headquarters are in Chicago. It joins a slew of other marvelous feats of engineering from the company, such as rockets and satellites.

While in the sky, two captains flawlessly navigated us for 4 hours at 30,000 feet, assisted by an on-board autopilot system. This system helps control all major parts of a commercial flight, run through software that reads a plane’s position and makes adjustments accordingly. The body is engineered to withstand tremendous force, which I was reminded of as we flew through a turbulent thunderstorm just west of Denver.

After successfully touching down at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, I took a cab back to my family home in the suburbs, where I will eat dinner at the table, surrounded by my family and friends. I’ll probably have some kind of organic meat, coming from a farm in the Midwest, as well as some vegetables from California, where I woke up this morning. After that, I’ll lay in bed and read from a book written by a Japanese warrior from over 600 years ago, translated for the modern age.

Full-circle, connected, and interdependent. The result of people working together with one another, as well as complex machines, systems, and infrastructures.

That was what I did today. I’m a lucky, grateful bastard.

My point is, if you don’t think the things that enable you to go about your days are incredible, then you simply aren’t paying attention.

Life is fucking amazing.

Love you,

Ian

This post was originally published on September 9th, 2019