Paper Airplanes

Today in class Twin asked us to find something in the New Yorker that spoke to us and discuss it. I had the October 5, 2015 edition.


I flipped through, looking for an article or a cartoon to write about. I couldn't really find anything until I opened up to a page full of pictures of paper airplanes.

"Between 1961 and 1983, the artist Harry Smith picked up two hundred and fifty-one paper airplanes off the streets of New York. He annotated most of them with handwritten details of when and where they were found."
What first attracted me to the paper airplanes was the paper they were made out of. They were all colorful and full of variety. I decided to pick this to analyze because I'm a pretty visual person. I also decided to pick this because despite how cynical I can be I really like people. And I really like the relationships that people have one another. I think it's cool to see how people interact.
I really like seeing examples of simple everyday interactions. Like when people pay it forward at Dunkin, or when they knit scarves and leave them on statues for people who need them to take.
The thing that all these acts have in common, as well as the paper airplanes, is that it shows how the actions of one person affect other people. Not necessarily in a giving way (like paying for someone's coffee). I like seeing the actions of people that don't affect someone in a negative or a positive way.
I just like seeing the way our everyday lives can mean so much more to someone than they do to us.
The paper airplanes are one example of this.
The kids who made these paper airplanes weren't making them to evoke emotion from any of the people who would eventually see them. But that's exactly what happened. It's cool to see that these little bits of paper would eventually make their way to a New York artist, and that people for years would be seeing those bits of paper.
I like seeing the way that our actions affect people years after. Those kids probably don't remember even making those airplanes, but the point is people will remember the airplanes. I think it shows a deeper meaning-even after we do things, we will still mean something to someone else. Even if we are forgotten, the stuff we makes an impact. Even if we are not connected to that impact, we are still influencing it and affecting someone else's life. But I don't know. Maybe it's just bits of paper.