I guess then that all my years as a Search and Rescue Captain must have been one huge, long exception then.
Pilots are paid to fly the aircraft as, even with all the new sophisticated gadgetry in the front, the automatic systems cannot cope with every variable that good old mother nature can throw at us. Not exceptions but just the inability of any logic system to be able to cope with potentially infinite variables and the wish to portray a comfortable flight to the paying guests.
I think you and I are saying the same thing, I've just not said it as eloquently as you.
It's not about the "flying" as much as the dealing with everything that is beyond the "flying". And by that I mean nature, failures, communication problems, etc. etc. etc. And of course that's part of flying, but the average bloke with just a couple hundred hours has not seen much nature, failures or communication problems, whereas the average bloke with 20 thousand hours has seen lots of nature, failures and communication problems.
As for all your years as a Search and Rescue Captain being an exception, well, aren't you flying because of exceptions? I mean it's not the norm for a search and rescue operation to be required, so in a way, yes, your career has been one exception after another.