I raw-dogged a flight
And it wasn't nearly as boring as I'd expected
Raw-dogging, for those unfamiliar, is the subtle art of being present in the moment—free of any form of stimulus or entertainment. It’s a rebellion against the 21st century’s inundation. No distractions. No phone, music, reading, food, water or even conversation. Nada. It’s simply existing (awake), left to one’s own natural devices.
The day is Friday, October 4th, 2024. “You got this,” I told myself as I yanked my duffle bag and hopped in line to board my flight from St. Louis to Dallas.
I’d already completed my warmup routine; it was about to be game time. As any baseball player would tell you, everything changes once you cross the baseline and take the field. On October 4th, I’d mustered the courage to take the field for my new team: the Raw Dogs.
Hall of fame pitcher Curt Schilling would sit in solitude and stare into the abyss—silently, sometimes for hours—before toeing the rubber on days he’d gotten the nod. Some would call it meditation; only he knew what was going on inside his head. Maybe he was simulating each of the 27 outs he’d aspire to record that day. Maybe he was replaying an argument with his wife from the night before. Only he knew. And far be it from anyone around him to ask questions—good teammates let the starting pitcher do their thing on gameday. Period.
I’d dreamt of becoming a Curt Schilling once upon a time. It’s been 9 years since I recorded my final out on an NCAA pitching mound; I dearly miss playing baseball, and I miss the craft of pitching. It’s an art in its own right—a mental one at least. In fact, I’m convinced that pitcher is the most cerebral position in all of sports. A lofty mental undertaking, from the second you arrive at the ballpark to the moment you hand the ball over to your reliever. Indeed, Marcus Aurelius could’ve won several Cy Young’s had he lived in the baseball era.
Today felt like a reboot of my pitching days, at least in the cerebral sense. You see, as opposed to my old gameday routine (arrive 2 hours before game time, locker room coffee & soothing music, analyze opposing lineup stats, hit the field for stretching, long toss, light bullpen session, “Play ball!”), today my consciousness was my pitching arm, my inner dialogue my pitch arsenal and seat 18A my pitching mound. The opposing batters? Food, hydration, drowsiness, music, books, writing, movies, nicotine, and the sultan of swat, my phone. A formidable lineup, no doubt.
My warmup routine began the second I stepped out of the car, hugged my mom goodbye and made my way through to the terminal. First step was to cleanse my headspace which had been contaminated throughout the car ride with Fox News XM radio (mom was a Rush Limbaugh stan, what can I say?).
Once I’d taken a seat at my gate and tucked my phone away, people watching was my warmup routine. The anxious girl, AirPods in, sitting criss-cross glued to her phone; the family of four, kids being kept docile via iPad games; the blazer-sporting mid-rate businessman, talking (loudly) on his phone about mortgage rates—all unremarkably distracted. Ugh.
At last, with half an hour to takeoff, I’d drawn luck: a man, standing upright, dreadlocks draped to his feet. At the blatant risk of being rude, I did stare. Awe-inspired, how could I not?! The commitment, the courage, the don’t-give-a-fuckedness… hell, this guy’d been raw-dogging his hair game for a whole decade if I had to guess. Respect. I had to retrieve my phone one last time for this. After all, it wasn’t game time just yet.
After not-so-subtly snapping a photo, the phone would be once again buried away, not to be touched until deplaning in Dallas (promise). I knew I must begin revving up my inner dialogue, and Dread Man was the perfect fodder for my mind. What’s his occupation? Where’s he going? What inspired him to raw-dog his tresses? Is Jesus risen?
I mulled over Dread Man’s entire existence until, finally, it was time to board. As I made my way to seat 18A, I exchanged pleasantries with several strangers—acts I’d previously considered unfathomable in my days of boarding planes headphones-in, eye contact-avoidant. It felt… genuine.
Alas, movement, as the plane was taxied from the gate to the runway. Did you know that the Boeing 737 comes with four life rafts and two lines of rope? For the first time ever, I’d heeded every last word of the pre-flight safety protocol spiel. (Not because the flight attendant purveying the protocols was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. Definitely not because of that.)
The sky was cloudless, but my economy-class window seat was directly centered on the wing, so I had minimal viewership of the outside world. Moreover, I was aboard an old school airplane, lacking screens on the headrests which meant no flight map watching.1
As the jet engines revved, I took the proverbial field. “Play ball!” is what I heard as the pilot announced the plane’s readiness for takeoff. Over the ensuing two hours, I’d say three words (in response to the love of my life offering pretzels and a refreshment to little old me): No, Thank, and You.
Being 6’1” proved advantageous (yet again). I’d remembered my eyeglasses which allowed me to survey the heads of passengers within my purview: roughly two-thirds were men, one in four wearing some sort of hat. The age demographics seemed to skew on the older side. Yet, I was the lone raw-dogger as everyone within my range of observation was either (seemingly) sleeping or inundating themselves with some form of entertainment.
I felt like Jason Bourne in the way that I was so attentive to my surroundings. Every ding over the intercom left me perked up like a dog hearing the word “walk”. I’d run threat assessments on each passenger who’d shift their way back to use the lavatory—no immediate threats were detected.
In the absence of sound or movement, I’d revert to Dread Man’s story arc which, by mid-flight, had been crafted in its entirety in my head. (He’s a guitarist from California.) Once I had Dread Man pegged, I workshopped the theme and premise of this essay. I brainstormed future Substack posts. I envisioned a long, happy life alongside my future wife, the flight attendant (stay tuned for the viral TikTok video of me proposing to her on a flight).
Before I knew it, we were landing in Dallas. I’d expected to have been, by that point, drooling over the prospect of redosing myself with various forms of stimuli. I wasn’t. In fact, I don’t ever recall even feeling bored.
Similarly, I’d surprisingly done no soul-searching. I’d expected this to be a time of reflection. Aided by the ambient Zen-like humming of the plane, a time of reaching into the depths of my soul to find meaning and purpose and yada yada yada… that’s just not how it went.
In reality, I was as entertained (if not more-so) as I would’ve been through the use of normal distractions such as music or reading. I suppose the takeaway is this: Everyday life is just as stimulating when you look around and ponder what you see. Raw-dogging a flight is simply proof of this concept. If Dread Man can have the courage to travel through life, indifferent to the judgement of others, surely we can put our phones down and take in our surroundings.
Authentically,
Will
Recall, from a previous post, the strict criteria for raw-dogging a flight