Into space

My mind was doing all sorts of somersaults on the plane to UB last night. I'd thought watching Side Effects would be a good idea--one of those "my life could never be this bad!" kinds of reverse psychology. But of course, my mind just followed the theme of the movie, i.e. how your brain, no matter what your willpower is, can do pretty messed up stuff (Rooney Mara's character stabs her Channing Tatum husband while she's in a drug-induced sleepwalking episode, and then her therapist goes crazy trying to take the blame off of himself for prescribing her the pills...).

But what's wonderful is that it's as capable of doing wonderful things as terrible things. There's this phenomena called the "Overview Effect" that astronauts get from seeing the Earth from outer space. It's a cognitive shift they experience when they perceive Earth as this small, fragile globe in the dark background of the universe. Suddenly, they are overcome with a sense of humility and goodwill--national boundaries don't matter anymore, and the inclination to work together and take care of each other becomes immediate. 

I would argue that something like that happens when you are looking down at the earth from an airplane. When I looked down from my window seat as we approached UB, anxious as ever, I saw Mongolia at night. And it was just dark, dark expanse. And there was something so peaceful and humbling about it. It quieted my mind. It was like a heavy blanket of hush was spread over my eyes. My eyes rested on the empty landscape, and then I spotted a flickering dot, moving slowly as we flew over it. One single ger camp with an outdoor fire, maybe. And then a long way off, another tiny cluster of light. I gazed with my forehead against the window until tendrils of light made its way into the city center, and when the wheels hit the runway, my mindset had changed.