Slow Down Now: The almost serious antidote to workaholism

The thing I like about fantasy is it’s cheap, and you always get what you want.

I want luxury, calm, and ease. There was a time when I was excited by air travel, but these days the magic has worn off. I’m searching for flights online now. It’s a business trip.

Let's see, here is one that will get me to my destination for a low price: but at what cost? I see what it will be like: terrible traffic, sullen security, and grumpy groups of tense travelers.

What I really want  is to go by first-class train. Surely, I should be sinking into my wood-paneled, deep, leather seat as I drink tea. My sleeping car is vast and quiet as it glides beneath the desert stars. My servant anticipates my every need. Superbly intelligent, he affects a dignified deference. I call him Benson. He calls me Sir. I meet exotic and fascinating people over lavish fare in the dining car.  The journey proceeds at a dignified pace. I take my time. I stop often: the train waits for me.  I soak in hot springs along the way. I breathe invigorating mountain air as I hike manfully upward. I may spend a week in some out-of-the-way place. 

Now where was I? Ah! Flights. My computer screen shows no non-stop flights. On the last flight I took, most of us flying riff-raff class passed out for lack of oxygen.

Fine Print: In exchange for a so-called low fare you agree to participate in an experiment to find out just how little oxygen a human can breath and still stay alive. Long-term damage: unknown.

In the mid-eighteen hundreds, the French writer Gustave Flaubert’s idea of perfect travel was to do it slowly. He wanted to be carried on a divan while observing the scenery. The train was too rapid for him.

It looks like I can stay on one plane but there is a layover.  The layover is purgatory. It exists in a time of its own. It’s the Bermuda Triangle. It’s the bad-dream-world of endless bossy announcements.

But if life were different, a feminine Italian accent would breathily call me—by name— to board. I would feel the calm of the hush-carpeted almost silent airport. My flight would  be empty except for perhaps one or two other people. The gifted on-board massage therapist would be waiting for me, not to mention beautiful flight attendants who would compete with each other for my attention. See what I mean? You always get what you want with fantasy.

But all of us don't want the same thing. Some people love to go to crowded airports and scream into cell phones. There has been much speculation as to why. Are they human? Only the brave, robust, and oblivious-to-the-obvious survive the airport unscathed. They’re called business travelers.

But business travel is a lot better today than a mere seven hundred years ago.  Marco Polo was a business traveler. He was away thirty-five years: quite a long trip by today’s standards. Of course travel was slower in the thirteenth century.

 If you think having a flight attendant spill tomato juice over you is bad, just wait until you hear about Marco Polo.

 Business travels from the medieval world next.