Flying lets you land in a city with different languages, sounds, smells and buildings, then simply walk out into it. Our bodies probably evolved to live and die within a few square miles of where we grew up. The jolt of arrival is what that mismatch feels like.
Flying became so routine and reliable that people stopped imagining what it actually is: an ancient dream of our species, now achieved. Its very success hides how amazing it is. Children's fascination with flight shows what adults could rediscover if they looked again.
Seeing the world from far above makes you ask what is going on down there, who lives under those lights, and why you are up here while they are down below. Altitude turns ordinary places into puzzles worth wondering about. A job people imagine as hours of boredom can be filled with curiosity instead.
There is more than one compass heading that counts as north, and each can be the useful one depending on the job. Even something that seems fixed and single turns out to have several definitions. The right one depends on what you need it for.
When people from many countries must coordinate safely in the same space, they settle on one common working language. In the sky, nearly every pilot uses English, whatever city they come from. A single plane carries business travellers, tourists, immigrants and people returning to the lands of their ancestors.