Why hate airports when you can love them?

I get to travel by plane about two to three times a year. I always look forward to making the trip, and unlike most people one of the things I enjoy most is the time I spend on the airport. The airport?! Yep I know, I’m a total lunatic, but I love the atmosphere and like to take the time to just be there; be there and watch. Airports are so full of life, they’re filled with so many interesting people. And everything that’s on their minds is such a good metaphor for life as well. Let’s address some of them:

Different timezones

Although it’s not instantly visible, people that walk around in the airport are all in different timezones. While they are in the same place in the same timezone geographically, mentally they are all in another state of time. Some walk around in early morning and crave a coffee, some feel like late evening with a cold beer on their mind and some are even in the middle of the night trying not to think about a bed. If you observe them you can actually see what’s on their minds, it shows in so many ways.

For life this is the same. People walk around with different mindsets, different belief systems. We’re all in the same place, yet we’re all there in a different state of mind. This state of mind determines for a great deal what they want, what they crave for. If you observe them you can find out what’s on their minds, it shows.

Different origins

Not only are people experiencing the same moment in different ways because of their experience of time, but they also experience it from different origins. People from all over the world with all kinds of different cultures are in the same place. They do their best to understand what to do next and overcome cultural differences to get what they want.

This is great to observe, communication with handicaps, people trying to communicate and overcoming verbal and non-verbal language barriers and cultural barriers. You can learn a lot from just observing, are people really trying to understand the other? If there is a mutual effort to reach an objective then people are successful. If it lacks that effort

It’s not too hard to translate this to ordinary life. People are from different origins and have different backgrounds. In the airport the gaps are huge and very visible, but even inside a city there can be tremendous differences in origins and backgrounds, that don’t show that easily. These origins act like a filter through which we view the world.

Different destinations

One of the few things that people at an airport have in common, is that they have a destination and that they haven’t reached it yet. Of course there is a lot of diversity in destinations and a big spread in how far people are from reaching it. Some people are nearly there, some are just beginning on their journey and then some are just on a stop-over to continue onwards.

People have the same things on their mind, yet are heading in totally different directions. Their purpose is the same, and they share the fact that they’re travelers on a path to their respective destinations.

Different expectations

Travelers travel for a variety of reasons. Associated with those reasons are expectations, and as such they have different expectations. You’ll see businessmen travel on airports, heading to close a big deal, or heading to meet a supplier that’s giving trouble. You’ll see young backpackers heading off to explore the world and experience travel as an activity. You’ll also see people heading home, back to their families. You’ll see people on a one-way trip, on their way to start a new life somewhere else.

They clearly have different expectations of the activity of travel and different expectations of what they’ll do or experience at their destination. Trying to find out what people’s expectations are, without talking to them, is very hard in my experience. Only the backpackers show it very clearly

That’s why I like airports…

Get the drift? I like being there and watching the people, trying to get a hint of what’s on people’s mind. Are they just leaving or almost at their destinations? Are they excited or do they look up to traveling? What timezone is that guy in? What is the purpose of her journey? And I just love to experience the dynamic atmosphere that airports have, they have a certain vibe. It’s different in different countries, but there is a certain common element that fascinates me.

Try it sometime!

I know there are a lot of you that thoroughly dislike being on airports. I know because a lot of people around me hate being there. Sometimes I feel that complaining about airports is a popular pass-time on parties. But it’s so negative, you don’t gain a lot from it in my opinion. Don’t like airports? I dare you to try to take the view I described above!