What were the chances?
I was at Orlando International (MCO), early morning, waiting for my flight to board, when the announcement was made. The flight was delayed.
I was on my way back to the San Francisco Bay Area. I had presented, the day before, a talk about “The Use of Expert Systems in Banking” at the BAI (Bank Administration Institute) conference. As always with business travel, I was anxious to get back home. I had a young family, three children under 11, and a fledgling start-up, WJM Technologies, back in Petaluma. The company had been struggling for three years and still wasn’t profitable. Our product, Early Warning(tm), was a new-account fraud detection expert system. This trip had been an opportunity for me to get our company some publicity, pass out business cards, and make connections with potential customers, especially banks in the southeast. And because I was an invited guest speaker, part of the tab was picked up by BAI, helping to conserve our limited resources.
The talk had gone well. I was coming back with many new contacts, including several banks interested in Early Warning(tm), most notably Citicorp. I was leaving early in the morning, even though that meant an additional night at the hotel, so that I could schmooze. Which meant I was tired, getting up very early, to catch the 9am flight home.
And now the flight was delayed.
But the reason for the delay caught my interest.
“The airspace has been taken over by NASA for the space shuttle launch.”
I loved the space program. I was a space program child. I remember running out onto the lawn one night in July, 1962, age 7, and someone calling out, “There it is! You can see it. Telstar!” Later, in high school, under the tutelage of my best friend, Howard, I had joined the astronomy club. His father had driven Howard and me, ages 15, in his big old Cadillac, barrelling along highway 38 in the dark of night, up into the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California. He thought we were crazy as he dropped us off, with our pop-tent, cameras, and telescope. It was dark, the wind was howling, and we insisted on staying. It was March 20, 1970, and Comet Bennett was at perihelion (closest to the sun). The wind was so strong that it broke our tent when we tried to put it up. We found refuge under a picnic table. To protect us from the wind, we wrapped the table (and attached benches) in the clear plastic tarp originally meant for the tent. Howard and I huddled inside that cocoon, staring up at the stars. The plastic was stretched smooth by the gale, like a thin sheet of curved glass. The next night, the wind died down, and we got some great pictures. We later sent our pictures to Sky & Telescope, but they were rejected.
So there I was, only the second time I’d been to Florida in my life, and I hadn’t thought of going the launch. To be honest, I don’t remember even knowing there was going to be a launch, or I might have scheduled my flight a bit later. In any case, the space program was smacking me on the side of the head, delaying my flight home.
I didn’t have much time to ponder any of this at the time. Only a few minutes after announcing the delay, a second announcement came. Our flight was back on. The launch had been delayed due to cloud cover. We had a narrow window to get our flight off, so would we please board quickly. Judging by the reaction of the crowd, we didn’t need much further encouragement. And we did get to board and take off.
I had a window seat (I always try to get a window seat), but the same cloud cover that was delaying the shuttle was also obscuring my aerial view of Florida. We were still in our ascent, probably about 20,000 feet, well above the cloud cover, when the pilot’s voice came through the speakers.
“If you look out your window, on the left side of the plane, you might catch a glimpse of the space shuttle. It just took off.”
I grinned with delight. I was on the left side of the plane. I had a window seat. I bent my head close to the tiny window, my nose pressing to the glass. But all I saw was an ocean of clouds, floating waves of white. There was no shuttle. I was afraid I had missed it when, suddenly popping up through the clouds like a cork from a bottle of champagne, there it was, the space shuttle Atlantis! It was below us, heading straight up, like a… well, like a rocket! I watched for the next 10–20 seconds as the spacecraft continued its climb, passing our altitude, then heading off into space. I stared at the huge plume, watched as it twisted and bent with the varying air currents at different altitudes. For the first (and only) time, I had seen the launching of the space shuttle. And without a doubt, I saw it from a million-dollar seat!
What were the chances?
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Note: This event makes me think about rare events, and the probabilities of such events. Unfortunately, my own involvement, my own experience of this event, and the meaning I imbue in my experience, leads me to bias the probability. Consider a different example, the particular molecules of air I am breathing, at this very moment. If I were to label each molecule separately, give each molecule a name, then they would be arranged in a way that is unique, never again to be reproduced, in the lifetime of the universe. And yet, I’m not writing a story about breathing these molecules. What makes it different? Every moment of my life is unique, yet some moments have greater meaning than others. And it is possible, maybe even probable, that none of my greatest moments have any meaning to another person. I think I need to be careful, and recognize that what might be very important to me, might not be important to anyone else. Is this the folly of my ego? That I find my own life so interesting, so absorbing, that I don’t have room for another person’s experience? Perhaps a better way for me to evaluate the importance of the events of my life is not their scarcity or rareity, but rather their impact beyond my own lifetime, and on other people. In this domain, even a very small event (from my point of view) could have large consequences. Perhaps it is better for me to live as if everything I do is important, or might be important, rather than aiming for peak experiences, peak impacts, that feed my ego. Hmm… I’ll have to think about that one.
