chances are.

I was never good at math, leaving my ability to fully understand statistics somewhat underdeveloped throughout the years. However I have to say, that being on the only airplane to crash in the United States in the last seven years is almost a statistical impossibility.

We walk through our days not thinking much about the odds, believing perhaps too heavily in luck, always thinking: well that could never be me. We watch, like we did from our televisions today, as scared and cold passengers huddled on the wings of an airplane waiting to be rescued (birds, can you even believe it?). We sit, like I did, in our offices a block from the river and listen to the sirens that pass by and then fade away in the distance. Somebody else’s life. Somebody else’s problem.

What do you do, I wonder, when you find yourself sitting there thinking about your life (or nothing at all) and hear the captain announce that you’re going down? What goes through your mind as the plane slowly loses altitude and the thick icy blackness of the Hudson gets closer and closer outside your window? Do you pray? Do you scream? Or do you sit in silent anticipation of a fate you have no control over?

We are mere pawns, the weak and numerous infantry of the world who every day step outside thinking we’ll certainly have more days like this one. More chances. More time (what are we waiting for?). Because there are a lot of miles on the road without a front wheel blow-out, a lot of late nights alone on the street without encountering the armed mugger a block away, a lot of pianos that fall a minute after we’ve passed, or a month, it doesn’t matter.

Because there are no real tools for predicting and forecasting our lives. We don’t know about tomorrow. Or the day after that. But I figure the bright side (and there should always be a bright side) is that chances of being on a crashing plane more than once is simply out of the question. So those on board today can safely fly without fear, forever.

That is, if they’re ever willing enough to get back on a plane.