The Participatory and Introspective Act of Standing in line at TSA

There is no place where I am more reminded of my humanity than the airport. While this might sound oxymoronic, as the airport represents the place where humans conquered the last frontier of transportation–air– there is hardly a place that mirrors nature more than it. This is where my adoration for the airport stems from: the pandemonium and restless tranquility that creates a palpable tension in the air, most notably in the TSA line.

Standing in line at TSA is by far one of my favorite activities. To protect the sanctity of my character, I should mention that I love all lines (fair, food, stores, etc.) but there is something so moving about the security line. Despite its rather straightforward nature, there is something so labyrinthian about it. Perhaps this perception stems not from the lines' winding structure but rather its test of wit, courage, and virtue. there is no closer brush with humiliation than a misstep in the TSA line.

The security line thus creates its own cultural zeitgeist, making the rather individualistic and secular activity of waiting in line a communal effort in which we all contribute to an air of anxiety and a buzz of mild annoyance. It's not without its own unspoken laws of urgency, respectfulness, and preparedness that one can without fail derive grievances from every time. To stand in line is to participate in a society.

This is why the advent of TSA pre-check is something that I find so perturbing. This notion that there are members of society that can pay to bypass or minimize something as fundamentally inconvenient as standing in line is enigmatic of a society that values convenience over community. Perhaps it's presumptuous to call the TSA line a community, but I would argue there is hardly a place where a common goal is more pursued than in an airport security line as there is a collective desire to get through as fast as possible from employees and travelers alike.

Although I find the TSA itself to be morally ambiguous and oftentimes problematic, I believe its processions best represent what I love about lines. They are the order among the chaotic nature of the airport. Order and chaos seem to be the paradox that humanity is always caught between. much as we exist in chaos we also are the order within it. Lines make me wonder: something we create or control?

Truthfully I don't have the answer for that but I do know that lines are congruous to the world around them. Their nature both liberates and restricts, organizes and isolates, unites and divides. They occupy the space between order and chaos allowing us to traverse the rigid duality of the world around us. It is in that way that lines provide a meditative space that allows us to experience the multiplicity of life, not merely its duality.

This is why there is no place that reminds me more of my own humanity than the airport. It is only in a place of excessive lines that one can begin to notice the complex interplays between social dichotomies that open a space for introspection on the delicate and intricate nature of what it means to be human.