Fear of Flying

I watched the movie Gran Prix recently and was struck by what the Yves Montand character said about the fear involved in auto racing.

He said: 

"I think if any of us imagined - really imagined - what it would be like to go into a tree at 150 miles per hour we would probably never get into the cars at all, none of us. So it has always seemed to me that to do something very dangerous requires a certain absence of imagination."

Exactly.  When I fly I'm meticulously considering every tragic possibility that my mind can come up with... From the cabin suddenly filling with flames... To a crack forming  in the fuselage that spreads until the aircraft buckles into itself.   Friendly skies... I think not.

I'm the same way with elevators.  I imagine that in the split second I board or get off... the cable snaps and catches me half on and half off... And I'm cut clean in half.   (That's not how I wish to go.)  So I fly in... And leap out... And probably look ridiculous.

But a commercial jet's seat for me is like the dentist's chair... Sitting there expecting the pain at any moment. 

Now I know that getting into a Formula One race car and driving 200 miles per hour has a different risk level than flying in a commercial aircraft... But that doesn't help me. 

I think Valium would help me.

....