"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:ag0Me.28191$084.26229@attbi_s22...
[...]
I don't know. But I guess if a pilot is able to "give up" flying
*without* some sort of a life-changing scary experience, then, perhaps,
they were never really that hooked on it in the first place?

But this is what I'm trying to explain to you. I know few pilots who love
flying more than I do. I know they are out there, but I still feel the
passion, and I'm sure it equals or betters that held by most. Yet, I am
still capable of contemplating quitting.

Granted, I haven't done it yet. And perhaps my passion WILL prevent me from
doing so. But I personally believe that even being able to contemplate it
suggests that I'm capable of it.

Of course, you could go with the tautological approach, and define "never
really that hooked on it in the first place" as meaning "is able to give up
flying without some sort of life-changing scary experience". But as with
all tautologies, that doesn't get you any closer to actually understanding
each pilot who gives it up.

This is another concept I cannot understand -- how can someone fly without
becoming hooked on the magic of flight? -- so perhaps I'll never be able
to fathom these folks.

As Jose already pointed out, there are people who become equally hooked on
the magic of other pursuits. There is nothing unique about flying that
makes it somehow better than other hobbies, except of course to those of us
that *believe* it to be better than other hobbies.

Flying is *not* golf, nor boating, nor motorcycling, nor anything else.

Golf is not flying, nor boating, nor motorcycling, nor anything else.

Boating is not golf, nor flying, nor motorcycline, nor anything else.

Motorcycling is not golf, nor boating, nor flying, nor anything else.

The above is equally valid for the infinite number of other things that
people develop a passion for. The fact is, each person has their own unique
outlook on what makes life all worthwhile. For any given pursuit, there's a
person out there that feels that pursuit is what gives them breath, that
that pursuit is the pinnacle of human achievement and demonstrates the very
best of humanity in a single activity. And for most of those people, they
view aviation as just another hobby, nothing special or magical at all.

It's not at all hard for me to imagine a person who tried out flying, and
perhaps even found it enjoyable enough to keep at it for awhile, but who
eventually decided there were other, more important things they needed or
wanted to do.

[...]
To simply relinquish the ability to fly of my own free will is
unthinkable, and -- since it's hard to B.S. a B.S.-er -- I always search
for deeper reasons when someone tells me they quit flying because of "the
wife" or "the job".

People imagine in others their own worst qualities. When you're a
"B.S.-er", it's hard to imagine that there are lots of people out there who
don't B.S. at all.

Pete