Fear Of Flying

As a Qantas A380 experienced an engine failure after taking off from Singapore today and hopefully managed an emergency landing without any casualty, I couldn't help but wonder:

- When a commercial plane crashes, do first class passengers get priority access to heaven and free booze for eternity?

- Do sinful frequent flyers get upgraded from purgatory to heaven?

- What kind of compensation do Platinum status passengers get?


Or, if it works according to the parable: "So the last will be first and the first will be last", does this mean that coach passengers will get lifetime Platinum status?

Most importantly, will people affected by anatidaephobia (the fear of being watched by a duck) die too?

So many stupid questions, so much time on our hands to try and answer them!

Qantas Of Solace

Yesterday, I thought about this geeky thing that happened to me 6 months ago.

It was a rather cold morning in Sydney, Australia last August. I happened to be riding on a hop-on hop-off, double decker open top city-tour bus when when my iPhone received a push email that was sent in the middle of the night just seconds ago in France. That email came from a patient of mine who was facing a personal crisis. It was long but I was able to read it entirely on my iPhone while riding on the open upper deck of this city tour bus.

I couldn't help but experience a rather awkward and disturbing feeling. The contrast between this email sent by someone desperate on the other side of the planet, in the middle of a summer night, and me receiving it, during a happy moment as far as I could be from home, in the morning in winter. This was rather unsettling and reminded me of the new technology-enhanced world we are all living in.

I was hopefully able to answer this email within minutes with a few comforting words that brought solace to this patient who still has no clue where I was at the moment I answered!

This can only lead to one question:

1) What kind of crazy world are we living in?

2) What kind of crazy/geeky shrink am I in this world?