What Is Distance, Anyway?

75,000 miles.

That's the average distance an adult will walk during their lifetime. Imagine walking the complete circumference of the earth at the equator three times.

And if I counted all of my additional miles of surface transport distance? Cars, bikes, trains, boats—even a couple of miles in that rickshaw in Vietnam—this might equal another 750,000 miles total.

Then there’s air travel. I am part of the first generation to have had the opportunity to fly anyplace in the world, any time I wanted, rapidly and in relative comfort. I utilized air travel for my business, pleasure, and even a bit of self-identity at certain times in my life. The payoff? I’m a “Million Miler” on three different airlines, meaning I have flown at least one million miles on each. On one of them, United Airlines, I reached million miler status about ten years ago so my actual mileage must be 50% more by now. And these milestones don't even include perhaps another million miles that I’ve flown on other airlines like Southwest, JetBlue, Alaska Air, etc.

If I add all of it up, I’ve travelled maybe 5 million miles in my lifetime:to the moon and back 20 times. Ad Astra! (“onward to the stars!”) But what does it all mean? What is distance, anyway?

I have always been suspicious of motion as a positive attribute unto itself. Motion is not always progress. Happiness cannot be assured solely by motion. Irrespective of the mileage points airlines tempt us with, we don't actually get brownie points just for moving (unless maybe it involves getting out from under that falling piano accidentally released from the crane above your doorway while you’re underneath).

Motion is often glorified. Jet setters, influencers, attractive and powerful looking men and women hype the romance of motion with images of far off places which almost always look better than the current “here” we find ourselves in. There is better than here, and you need to move to get there.

Right?

Yet in our world of constant motion, we may neglect to ask ourselves why we go. The going itself seems like its own reward.

So, why DID I go? What was all that mileage all about? Sometimes, perhaps even often (but maybe not as often as you would think) I had actual stuff to do which could not be done here. It was someplace else. I traveled to Denver for the holidays to celebrate with my family. I drove my little MGB all the way from Texas to Washington, DC to go to graduate school. Likewise, I flew to LA and Seattle to see my kids when they too went to college far, far away; because they had decided with a bit of prompting from me to see the world, but not the part of the world where they grew up. I attended conferences around the world, important scenes with impressive folks giving spellbinding speeches and laughing uproariously at each other's not-so-funny stories, to impress upon each other that they really really enjoyed travelling halfway around the world to have that bad drink and hear that mediocre story. As often as not, it was me trying to look important and to deliver that not-so-spellbinding speech, before joining my acquaintances for that not-very-impressive drink. Somehow distance was the maraschino cherry in the drink, the humor in the story, and the injector of charm in our surroundings. The motion of coming and going mattered; or so we thought at the time.

Of course, there was the travel for business, and the business of travel.

I’ve engaged for decades in all sorts of international business, which by definition means distance and travel. This made it both more difficult and more interesting. There’s a scene from the wonderful movie "Up in the Air" where the main character, played by George Clooney, makes his living as an HR consultant in constant motion, travelling to fire people from their jobs as part of his executive recruitment business. In this scene, Clooney meets the head pilot of his favorite airline, played by Sam Elliot. The occasion for the encounter is that Clooney has reached the airline's ultimate status level: five million miles of travel. Elliot's character calmly sits down in the first class seat next to Clooney's character and asks, "Where are you from?" Clooney considers the question and replies, "I’m from here," as the camera pans past his face, through the airplane window and out into the clouds.

Photo: Igor Fedoriv

In this regard, and perhaps for many of us in that "million mile club" either literally or spiritually, distance is more than a metric. It could just be the point of it all. Like a jogger who records every morning run. Or the walker who feels bad about themselves if they don't achieve the mythic 10,000 steps a day. Or the traveller who fails to get his platinum status one year because he did not fly enough. It’s true, we may crave the bragging rights of telling others how many miles we ran, or flew, or rickshawed; but it's also more than that. It's an expression of our identity, as if I am 10x more of whoever the heck I am if I fly 100,000 miles a year, than I would be if I flew only 10,000 miles a year. I know, it sounds a little warped when I put it this way, but.... I'm just sayin’.

I have come to the conclusion that my twenty roundtrips to the moon and back were counted to allow me to rationalize, justify, all of that motion; even though more than 19 of those moon shots were probably just cows jumping over the moon.

If I were to magically conjure the actual distance I’ve travelled in my life for things that mattered, made a difference, were successfully concluded ventures, stopped something bad from happening, created something good to happen, were a simple act of kindness and union with others; or even were just so much fun and so satisfying that I could not have lived without the trip, my mileage might not even qualify me for a free drink ticket on Southwest airlines.

Yet it’s been those things, which did not always involve the most distance, that were the things that I most needed to go and do. And also? To ride in that rickshaw. That bumpy journey was awesome, all two miles of it.

I do not lament my millions of miles of comings and goings. Nor the trail dust which gathered as I went, and was washed away when I returned. After all, this is life, no? The cumulative effect of all of that accumulated distance, was not because of all of it, but rather, only a small fraction of it. Those things I went and saw, did and returned from. Those people I visited, met, said goodbye to, yearned to see again. Those books I opened, completed, lost on the airplane, found in a rail station. Those discoveries I never knew were out there, or had imagined and on rare occasions, actually found. If I had not gone the distance, I would never have found those few scattered points of light and meaning which made it all worthwhile. This has all made me happy even if the journey registered as a 1,200 step day rather than the arbitrary 10,000 step goal.

Photo: Marek Piwnicki

I am fascinated by these words of Abd al-Rahman III, the emir and caliph of Córdoba in 10th-century Spain, who summed up a life of worldly success at about age 70, roughly my own age as I write these words today.

“I have now reigned above 50 years in victory or peace; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call. What was my payoff? I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot,” al-Rahman wrote. “They amount to 14.”

His distance was 14, measured in days, but they may as well have been miles.

The question he answered was not what distance is, but rather what is the distance which actually matters.

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