Supposedly Convenient, Eternally Damned

On the perils of modern transportation

I walk through the automatic sliding doors at the Boise Airport, the only major transportation hub in the entire state of Idaho, and I’m standing in the security line under the harsh lights, feeling the weight of the early hour settle over everyone around me. The line is short, folding back on itself, a slow procession of people with their bags and tired expressions, and I’m holding my phone close, because my boarding pass lives there now, reduced to fragile pixels that could disappear if the battery fails or the signal drops. There was a time when boarding passes were paper, something tangible you could hold and crease, a pass that was printed behind a counter, handed to you by a real human being; a small reminder of your place in the journey. Now, it’s all digital, meant to be effortless, and I’m standing in front of another fucking digital box worn by time, a thin plastic kiosk that won’t load, tapping on a touch screen that’s glitching out because of overuse—tens of thousands of gritty, anxious fingertips every day; and I’m the ticket agent now, printing out luggage tags, hoping all the info on the screen is correct, and I’m peeling the sticker back to tag my own baggage like I work for Southwest, but with none of the perks like discounted travel or a health insurance plan.

This modern mess leaves you vulnerable, one glitch away from being stuck; not a human customer service agent in sight, too busy doing ten other jobs because the airlines continue to cut back their workforce to increase profits—oh, and speaking of increased margins: bags no longer “fly free”, there’s an upcharge for that, and there’s a damn upcharge for everything these days isn’t there? Your bag’s over 50 pounds? That’ll be another $25. But when I look around, as a guy who weighs 190 pounds, I start to do the math on ‘ol Betsy right beside me whose tipping the scales at 300+ and I start to wonder: where’s her financial penance, her overage fee for being obese? And of course she’s got her oxygen tank and emotional support dog—but that extra baggage doesn’t come with a price tag; just the rest of us having to avoid eye contact when the heifer waddles down the aisle looking for the window seat that her fat ass can’t squeeze into—and now I’m stuck with my arm out in the walkway as passengers nudge me and the beverage cart hits my elbow every time the poor flight attendant saunters down with little paper cups filled with Coke products and single-serving liquor bottles.

Before you even board the plane, you’re forced to confront the insidious implementation of corporate greed disguised as convenience at every step of your travel experience. There’s TSA pre-check to skip the regular security line, CLEAR to skip the TSA pre-check line, probably another secret app none of us have heard of yet, reserved for the elites of travel who’ve racked up over a million miles. They already have their exclusive lounges and free alcohol, why not another perk for those pricks? The hierarchy of paid-for-convenience continues to build upon itself, crushing all of us peasants on the bottom who can’t afford another charge on the credit card—the one with the interest rate in the high teens that’s a few bucks shy from reaching the maximum credit limit.

This isn’t just about the airport, though; it’s the whole sequence of steps that lead here, each one promising ease but often delivering something more hollow. There’s the car rental through an app, where you borrow from someone else’s life—a vehicle left idle, turned into a way to make ends meet. There isn’t even a person to hand me the keys, just an automated text to my phone with a lockbox code containing the key fob for the car I’m renting from this faceless entity. They don’t choose this as their main path; it’s a necessity, a way to cover costs in a world that demands more. Driving that car through the quiet streets of San Diego, I felt the disconnect: this isn’t true “sharing”, but a patched-together solution that leaves both sides wanting something more stable.

If not that, there’s the ride from a driver summoned by another rideshare app, appearing out of the night to take you where you need to go. The woman who drove me once shared quietly about her long hours, the divorce she’s still trying to rebound from financially, supporting family in ways her previous work no longer allows. Her words hung in the air, a reminder that these roles aren’t chosen freely, but endured. Neither of us truly wanted to be in that moment—her behind the wheel for endless shifts, me relying on a system that feels impersonal despite the human at its center. The boarding pass on the phone fits this pattern too: it’s sold as progress, saving trees and time, but when the technology falters at the gate, you’re left exposed, questioning the reliability we’ve placed in these tools.

The airport amplifies it all, a place where reluctance is palpable in every corner. The security agents move through their routines with a mechanical precision, instructing us on what to remove, their voices steady but distant, never daring to attempt a genuine human connection. They stand there hour after hour, underpaid for the scrutiny they face, perhaps longing for lives without this constant vigilance. The travelers form a weary collective: parents managing restless children, professionals absorbed in their screens, gazing ahead at nothing, second-guessing the decision to leave. No one seems eager for this. I see the baggage handlers on the scorching tarmac, shifting loads with quiet effort, appearing to carry the burden of a job that’s more obligation than calling. These tasks sustain a larger cycle: work that’s performed not for deep satisfaction but to afford fleeting distractions: a brighter neon water bottle, an enhancement to a game on your phone, another pointless Amazon purchase you made while you were bored on the toilet. The small joys of life get overshadowed, and travel brings this into sharp relief, highlighting how we’ve grown accustomed to chasing what’s next instead of resting in the reverence of what’s present.

I feel this pull myself, and it troubles me deeply. As the plane lifts off, the hum of the engines filling the cabin, the air pressure tightening in my ears, my thoughts drift not to the place ahead but back to what I’ve left. Home in Nampa offers a rhythm that’s grounding: the community rec center with its familiar faces, the green belt path along the river where the air feels open and real, where I run by a stranger and throw up a peace sign, and they smile back. The thing I always long for when I leave Idaho is the kindness shown to my family, the gentle acknowledgments from passersby, reminders of connections that aren’t transactional. Living in a place like the Treasure Valley, with its spread-out million or so residents, you become attuned to a slower pace, one that shields you from the harsher edges elsewhere. It’s easy to forget how the wider world can feel diminished, its people caught in cycles of modernity that erode the spirit.

But this awareness demands honesty: it’s a shared condition, one where the earnest longing for meaning gets buried under layers of irony and distraction, another useless app I have to download to participate in this modern Hell we call a society. The critique runs deep, revealing the frayed edges in the quiet struggles of those who make our journeys possible; slaving away for a few hours of overtime to make rent this month. The people working second and third jobs, the Turo hosts and Uber drivers, the TSA grunts are the canaries in our coal mine, suffocating on the fumes of late capitalism while we passengers pretend it’s all just a fun diversion. We’re not traveling to broaden horizons; we’re fleeing routines that feel empty. But what we find out hits us cold in the middle of the night, when all the noise fades: the emptiness follows us at 30,000 feet, follows us wherever we go. Maybe that’s the real peril: not the apps or the lines or the digital ephemera, but the way they’ve trained us to overlook the small graces, the smile from a stranger in Nampa, the quiet path along the green belt where the freeway fades and the only sound I hear is the water rushing over the rocks. We’ve traded it all for the mirage of something better just one upgrade away.

Yet here I am, phone in hand, scanning my virtual ticket for the umpteenth time, wondering if this is the supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again. Probably not; the machine grinds on, the digitized revolution continues, the corporate overlords tell us that A.I. is going to improve all of our lives while the depression mounts, while the bodies pile up from suicides and overdoses, while we all chase the diminishing dopamine hits we get from swiping on social media as we wait for the flight to take off, instead of talking to the person sitting next to us who feels just as lonely, just as empty.

I’m too ensnared to quit, and so are you; we’re living in eternal damnation built by the tech companies that promised this new digital era. Next time, maybe I’ll print the damn boarding pass. Just in case.