On: How the Iran war is hurting travelers, airline industry

The papers speak of a fuel shortage, and the fashionable world is in despair over its summer plans. One might think the world had ended, rather than merely postponed. They speak of inconvenience as though it were tragedy, and tragedy as though it were inconvenience.

I confess I find it all rather amusing. The modern obsession with travel has always struck me as the triumph of motion over meaning. We rush about the globe to prove we have been places, not to understand them. And now, when the machinery of our restlessness falters, we behave as though the universe has committed a personal affront.

They call it a blockade; I call it an intermission. Perhaps we shall rediscover the art of conversation in our own drawing rooms, now that we cannot flee to someone else’s. There is a certain poetic justice in it: we who have treated the world as our playground now find the gates temporarily closed. And what do we do? We complain about the price of admission.

The true crisis is not that we cannot travel, but that we have forgotten how to be still. A man who cannot be interesting at home will not become so in Persia. Though I suppose if one must be dull, it is better to be dull abroad - it lends the appearance of depth.

How typical that a war should be measured by its effect on holiday plans. We have perfected the art of missing the point with precision.