Back on the road again, in my case this means going from airport to airport, check-in and check-out over and over again to the next transitional destination of the week. For the past weeks, months -- sorry it is getting to be 2 years now I have been on this most amazing project where I got to be project manager for anything not Europe -- first Asia, then Americas continent and then to finish it off --> India.
Among many things this meant -- travel, lots and lots of it, spending 90% of your time travelling and going from place to place puts your body and mind in state of conscience-ness that for a lack of better term I call my "In transit state of being". A large chunk of your time you are surrounded by strangers - in hotels, in taxis, airports, airplanes, ... often in uncomfortable confined spaces breaching your natural private space. When you think of it, on an airplane as a lone traveller you will be spending hours and hours next to virtual strangers often not being able to avoid physical contact let alone securing your private space, in any other circumstance you would cringe at the thought of it. You develop a mental cocoon around yourself, I have seen many other frequent travellers do the same.
You create a virtual private space, your mind goes into this mental cocoon, your thoughts can go you into all directions completely disconnected from anything to do with your physical environment, although you are still functioning bodily - checking in, lugging your belongings around, going thru the dreary security routine, paying taxi - not forgetting to ask for the receipts, scanning gates/departure times, walking thru endless airport corridors, standing in immigration queues, finding the lounge or decent restaurant/bar ... all the time in transit, physical actions executed efficiently, focused and routinely but all the while keeping your mind occupied with something entirely different. After a while this in transit mental state becomes very relaxing - time to shed all the stress of meetings, deadlines, objectives to achieve. Putting on state of the art noise cancelling earphones with your favourite music to block out all unnecessary sound distractions.
You're travelling thousands of km's but your mind stays in one static place - you have your best ideas and visions in that place, you can cope with any travel crisis thrown at you, like my Houston flight diversion to alternative airport due to severe weather airport closure, the annoying nervous passenger next to you, the potential irritation with casual travellers that take ages going thru the security check points, the nuisance of people that stand one hour in the immigration queue and then still have not filled in their forms correctly, the over perky flight attendant that just can not get it into their heads that when you have refused another drink two times, that your refusal will still be there when they offer a third time.
You let it all wash over you, you control your own thoughts with hours and hours where you do not care or want to interact with people around you, your in transit state of being becomes your premium "in your head alone time", so that you are ready for the next day on the job.