Emerging from The Cone of Silence

On a day where perhaps more information was flowing from more sources and through more channels than at any time in history, I spent 5 hours sitting in a “cone of silence” – a 737 heading east from Seattle to NYC.

I fly all the time so the idea of being disconnected is nothing new, but today is when the absence of information, the lack of connectivity really became starkly apparent. As the doors shut, the cell phones went silent, and it truly felt like isolation.

No election news, speculation, early returns, wild exit polls, etc. Just some music piping through my iPhone headset to drown out the drone of the rhythmic engines and the idle chatter of some college students nearby.

I am a total information junkie – I am typically glued to Google Reader, Twitter, and a steady rotation of news sites of all stripes. That’s been amplified with the election coming. But on this day when it was all finally happening, it was kind of nice to take a complete mental break and shut down the noise…if only for a moment.

Wheels down, brakes coming on, the cell phones started blinking to life all around me. Couple calls being made, the soft beeping of text messages building in volume. Time to emerge and get back to life.