Can Humans Fly?

In the hit song “I’m Alive”, award-winning musical artist, Celine Dion proclaims “I have wings to fly, I believe…I’m alive”.

In another hit song, another great singer proclaims “I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky”.

We’ve all had dreams of flying…literally speaking, and also figuratively. I figure that almost all humans, if not all, have had, at one point or the other, some dream in which they dreamed they were flying.

I can recall vividly some of my dreams of being able to fly, and flying. In the last, I was standing on the ground with a group of people, when suddenly, I decided to plunge into the air and fly. I did this repeatedly, as though I was swimming in the air, and when I landed, the people asked me how I could have done this, and I replied “you just have to believe that you can; you just have to have the courage and go for it”.

In that dream, it all felt so real, that, for a few seconds after waking up, I actually thought about the possibilities of plunging into the air and flying. Then it dawned upon me that it was just a dream, and in reality, that can’t happen in the waking world. Or was it just a loss of faith? It calls to mind the old Roman proverb: whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right!

But seriously, this article isn’t so much about the power of faith. I’ll deal with that in other articles. Here, I want to seriously consider the possibilities of flying. Yes, lifting off the ground, with some sort of man-made wings, and flying into the air. Not too high, maybe about twenty feet up, like a bird, and landing again, probably covering a few hundred meters each time.

I’ve been living in the Rupununi Savannas of Guyana for some time now, and the mountains, trees and big open spaces entice me. It draws me away for a few moments from the more mundane, earthly things, that keeps me anchored to the “surly bonds of earth”.

So I’ve had ample time to let my imagination fly free. But what about me? I want to lift off too! And I seriously wonder how, after all of mankind’s accomplishments, we haven’t perfected human wings.

And no, I’m not talking about the airplane. I’m talking about real wings, like birds. I mean, the real thing!

We can all imagine that, since the creation of the earth, men and women might have looked into the skies and dreamed of flying. We’ve all looked at the birds in the air and wondered if we couldn’t devise some sort of artificial wings, put them on, and fly.

So we wrestled with the idea and created the airplane. The first motor driven flying machine by the Wright brothers took off in 1903. Now we have space shuttles and supersonic jets. So what about my wings?

I’ve heard scientists say that the density of the human body is disproportionately greater than those of flying creatures such as birds, bees and butterflies, and that that makes the prospect of human wings daunting, if not dismal.

Further, the risk of those wings breaking and us crashing to the ground brings to mind a sobering thought, that keeps us well anchored to the ground. But we also know that humans are daring beyond all measures, and we also believe that “anything the mind believes, it can achieve”. And I’m sure we can devise protective gears to cushion a fall from the skies.

So once again, where are my wings? I want to fly!

Here’s your homework: do a google search on “human wings” and see what comes up!