10 reasons to live on Airport Time.

Airport Time is a liminal zone, where hierarchies are in constant flux, circadian rhythms are discordant, and you are not in charge. Here are ten reasons to shift out of your current chronological zone and into the modern Zen of Airport Time.  

Island Time = Not Urgent
Company Time = Not About You
Airport Time = Not Normal

When overwhelmed, overstimulated, overburdened, overworked: just imagine yourself at the gate, where your only job to simply be calm and patient and to answer to your own name. Embrace the surreal—enjoy a weirdly firm donut and an overlooked podcast.

Airport Time = Free time.
During Airport Time, things happen when they happen. This is not your fault. It is your gift. You can’t be punished or chided or hassled on Airport Time—become one with the delays and timelines. Exhale and be at peace. You are a mere drop in the river of Airport Time. Relax into the flow.

1.        All meetings are optional due to the whims of the connectivity gods.

2.        All schedules are subject to change at any moment.

3.        Once inside the airport, you cede control to entities larger than yourself.

Airport Time = Egoless time.
During Airport Time, we are all cogs in the engine of the airports. None of us, or our reasons for travel, are of any consequence. Accept your smallness. Be humbled by the systems. Have a seat, and be kind to all the other nameless travelers. There are no main characters within an airport concourse.

4.        All encounterable characters are automatically charming.

5.        Nobody knows what’s happening, not really (this is also true in other time zones, but it’s much more obvious in airports).

6.        All common spaces hold uncommon stories: and the concentration of comedies, tragedies, love stories, and absurdities is FAR higher than beyond the tarmac.

Airport Time = Feral Time.
During Airport Time, there is only one rule: be accommodating of others. You can have a beer at any chronological moment. Read any kind of book for any reason. Eat trail mix for dinner, a burger for breakfast, or have coffee at nine at night. You can sleep at the oddest of hours and be your oddest at the sleepiest of hours. The rules are very close to being in proximity to a black hole.

7.        Mealtimes are nebulous and numerous. Eat shrimp at 6:00 in the morning. Sure.

8.        Wakefulness is optional. All flat surfaces are nap spots.

9.        The dress code is no more complex than, “Perhaps shoes?”

10.  The context of who we all are becomes flattened to the point of comforting obscurity—there is no first class when in line for the bathroom.