We should be in the air right now, but here’s a little quote that inspired us to take flight:

“Often I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am. There is no mystery about why this should so. Stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines, your refrigerator full of food, your closet full of your clothes – with all this taken away, you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. That’s not always comfortable, but it is always invigorating.
I eventually realized that direct experience is the most valuable experience I can have. Western man is so surrounded by ideas, so bombarded with opinions, concepts, and information structures of all sorts, that it becomes difficult to experience anything without the intervening filter of these structures. And the natural world – our traditional source of insights is rapidly disappearing.”
–Michael Crichton