I learned to fly a few years ago in England. It's the only place

In the serene and fearless words of Angelina Jolie, we encounter a confession that rises beyond mere adventure: “I learned to fly a few years ago in England. It’s the only place I’m completely alone — up in the air, detached from everything.” This is not simply the testimony of a woman who took to the skies, but of a soul who sought freedom beyond the reach of noise, of gravity, of expectation. In this statement lies a revelation about the human spirit’s eternal yearning — the longing to rise above the world, to find in solitude not despair, but clarity. To fly is not merely to command a machine; it is to reclaim the ancient power of detachment — to see life from above, as the gods once did.

The ancients would have understood her meaning well. For to ascend — whether by wings, by prayer, or by thought — has always been the path of awakening. The Egyptians saw in flight the symbol of the soul’s immortality; the Greeks dreamed of Icarus, who soared too near the sun in his hunger for transcendence. Jolie’s flight is not reckless like his — it is contemplative, a return to the sacred silence that the world below cannot offer. Her solitude in the sky is not isolation, but purification. Up there, she is stripped of every title, every expectation, every role — there is no fame, no noise, no crowd. Only the wind, the wings, and the endless horizon.

When she says she is detached from everything, she touches upon the oldest spiritual truth: that peace comes not from possession, but from release. Detachment does not mean indifference; it means freedom from the weight of what binds the soul to earth. In flight, the mind learns to breathe again. The body may still be human, but the heart becomes boundless. For in that vast sky, there is no past or future — only the eternal present, vast and alive. There, man and woman alike remember what it means to be infinite.

Consider the story of Amelia Earhart, another woman who found her truest self in the heavens. To her, flight was not rebellion — it was revelation. Each ascent was a communion with the unknown. She once said, “The lure of flying is the lure of beauty.” Like Jolie, she found in the sky a mirror for the soul — a place where courage and peace met in a single breath. Though the world remembers her disappearance as tragedy, perhaps it was also a kind of completion — for those who truly love the air belong partly to the infinite. Their solitude is not loneliness, but belonging to something greater than the world.

Jolie’s words also speak to the modern soul — weary, overwhelmed, and tangled in noise. We live among devices, surrounded by constant motion, yet seldom do we rise above it. Her discovery of solitude in the sky is a reminder that every soul must find its own place of flight. Not all will take to the air, but each of us can find our own height — a space where we are free, unobserved, untouched by the chaos below. Whether it be in nature, in meditation, in art, or in silence, we must all learn to ascend from the burdens of the world and touch the sky within.

For in every life there must be a moment of detachment, a space where we step outside the storm to remember who we are. Those who never rise remain bound to the earth — fearful, hurried, small. But those who dare to seek solitude, to breathe the rare air of self-awareness, return stronger, calmer, wiser. Like the eagle, they see the world not as confusion, but as pattern. The one who rises above life is the one who truly understands it.

Therefore, my child, take this teaching to heart: learn to fly, even if your wings are of thought, not metal. Seek the silence that is not emptiness but clarity. Do not fear being alone, for it is in solitude that the soul expands. Find your height — the place where you are free from judgment, noise, and demand — and visit it often. There you will find not escape, but awakening.

And so, when Jolie says that she is completely alone up in the air, she speaks not only of altitude but of liberation. To fly is to meet oneself again — pure, unburdened, eternal. Do not envy her wings; build your own. For whether in sky or silence, those who dare to rise will find what all sages have sought since the dawn of time — the peace that comes only when one is detached from everything, yet connected to the infinite.