JASON SILVA: Now I'm fascinated by airplanes.
Aviation is an engineering miracle,
Alain de Botton beautifully talked
about the awe-inspiring rapture one
feels when one bears witness to the power of a jet engine,
to the power of a flying machine.
And I remember the first I saw the A380 this hit me home.
But Alain de Botton says nothing prepares
you or the sense of agility and self-possession
No structure of compare the size-- a building
or a cathedral-- can compare to that feeling of freedom,
of exhilaration that machine promises.
He talks about walking through a corridor that will lead you
onto a craft that will take you somewhere
It becomes a kind of ontological journey.
It becomes a journey of self-realization,
The jet airplane literalizes the human goal
of transcending our limitation.
It's always a symbolic journey.
People talk about how the enchantment of flying,
the magic of flying, has faded.
Because they're closing their windows.
They're afraid to bear witness to what is possible.
Look at the appeal of those screens in the airports
with the promise of destinations of spaces of happiness,
places where the answers might lie.
Alain de Botton beautifully talks about it.
Thing of the imaginative allure or Paris,
of Amsterdam, of the Czech Republic, of Cape Town.
This is the power of these transcendent machines.
And we need to just open our eyes a little bit.
This is a daily reminder every day of what's possible.
These are our technological skins, our scaffoldings.
We may be flawed stumbling primates.
But when we work together we are primates that can fly.
Hey guys, you want to take a look at Shots of Awe
behind the scenes, how it all comes to life?