airports, Kundera, and The Gutter Twins

Airports always arouse a melancholy and ruminative mood within me. I'm always anxious, leaving somewhere or headed towards something; and whatever I'm leaving or headed towards is most always something that is valued or dreaded. At times, I am leaving something I love for something I would rather not be involved with. The airport has constructed itself into such a grand metaphysical annex, insulated with the weight of it's paradoxical isolation. I imagine it as a purgatory, all of these different people from al over the world, simply waiting, doing what they can to distract themselves, at the mercy of intercoms directing their flight times and departure gates. It's such an obscene suspension, considering the fact that all of these people are in transit, airports breed anxiety and boredom all at once. People are out of context, a lot of them appear clueless, or worn and tired. I watch people walk or run by and their image takes on a whole new meaning. The freedom that my mind has to build the story of their life is much greater because are not in their context, they are free from the tight walls of routine and identity, and enter into a place where there is little control over your immediate fate, or desired plans. I think a lot in airports, it's a neutral area to make sense of events that have all happened in other times, in other places, surrounded and defined by context and company. It's all reflection and helplessness.

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"In existential mathematics, that experience takes the from of two basic equations: the degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting"-Milan Kundera

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