Professional aviation uses high-tech flight simulators to train pilots. From the outside, these boxy contraptions hardly look flight-worthy, mounted on multiple steel hydraulic powered pedestals that move the simulator to mimic flight conditions down to the smallest sensation. Inside, the boxy look is soon forgotten as the flight crew straps in to the perfect replica of an aircraft, including a near 360-degree visual screen.
Signaling the imminent start of a training session, the words, “Motion’s coming on” warns the aircrew as a matter of safety, as the hydraulics are engaged and pilots brace in case a system turn-on hiccup causes an uncommanded violent jerk.
At first, the simulator motion makes it feel like you are sitting on the head of a pin, with the slightest shift in aircraft controls causing an exaggerated effect. But that goes away quickly, and in no time the pilot can almost forget that his total concentration is on a false situation. It’s not uncommon to have a pilot finish a particularly difficult simulator shaking from the very real stress of the fake scenario.
In a way, most lives are spent teeing up on a personal life simulator, precariously balanced on a perch of falsehoods, experiencing all the stress and fear of life without actually living, or the benefit of a warning phrase like, “motion’s coming on.”
It might take the epiphany of tragedy to see past the facade of convention. The sensation is not comfortable, the realization that the Emperor has no clothes, that the underpinnings of entire lives have been held up by false gods of materialism.
Living a simulated existence can be comfortable for a while, but we all must eventually face the simple reality of death. This is just a humble reminder that life’s “motion is on.”