A Navigation Mishap
A time I got lost for being over-reliant on my rectangle
A few days ago, I had an in person meeting at a coffee shop I'd never been to, 11 minutes from my house. As I was leaving my home to head to this meeting, I popped open the calendar item and queued up GPS to the location.
Some background: For a few days prior to this meeting, my android cell phone had been hitting me with it's quarterly, on the knees, hands in the pray position request, to allow it to proceed with a software update. Each time I'd had the opportunity in these few days prior, I replied with the ol' "Remind me Later" to avoid the 45 minute period where my pocket supercomputer turns into a paperweight.
Well, fast back forward and I'm probably 3-4 minutes en route to my meeting, GPS on the dash behind my steering wheel, and I see the fateful, "Your Android Smartphone will Restart In 10...9...8...etc". The gall I think, of whatever internal engineer thought it'd be useful to add a count down, as if that'd be adequate time to frantically navigate any last wishes before being left in the dark ages until the end of it's update sequence.
After the immediate 'Oh well, that's annoying.' response, it settles in with me that I am heading to a destination in which I have no idea where it's located. I only know it's just over 5 minutes away, and thankfully remember it's on Columbia Street near Tower Grove Park in my home of St. Louis. What a fool I feel like too. I used to be a pizza delivery driver in high school, and like all among the Rocco's delivery troops, I took pride in my ability to look at an address once and navigate with ease to my final destination, leaving my phone available for stereo jams.
I continue South down Kingshighway (for anyone that knows St. Louis), with the hope I'll catch the road sign for Columbia Ave as I'm passing by Tower Grove Park. No luck as I eventually arrive at the South-West corner of the park, confident now that I have overshot my destination, and 2 minutes from my meeting time. I turn right and head West, making my way to the end of the neighborhood street I've found myself on and meet another road running North-South that does nothing for me to orient towards my destination.
Fortunately, I see a man walking to my right, heading North up the road, and so I turn this direction and as I approach him, roll down my window to ask the question, "Hey! Do you have a smartphone?"
His reply, "Yeah, but I ain't gonna let you use it."
I come back, "Sure, that's fine, I just need to know where the Park Avenue Coffee is, if you wouldn't mind looking it up on your maps app?"
"Oh, just keep heading straight and turn left on Columbia, you can't miss it!", he replies.
I thank him and continue up to my destination, arriving about 4 minutes past the hour. Thankfully this occurrence makes for good ice breaker banter as I excuse and explain my tardiness, to the amusement of my rendezvous partner. She recalls nostalgically the time when GPS wasn't even an option, and it was part of the life experience to orient yourself properly in the geosphere.
I wanted to tell this story because it’s a prime example of the { Convenience vs X } trade-off I believe we’re faced with in many of the decisions we make on any given day.
Convenience isn’t a bad thing, but it’s worth thinking about what we give up when we become a culture that defaults to the easy route. I originally thought this was a technology phenomena, but it got me thinking where else we’re sacrificing independent action, knowledge or something deeper in exchange for convenience in any domain.
Knowledge of Surroundings vs Turn-by-turn Navigation
Knowing Math vs Using a Calculator
Knowing How to Cook vs Eating Out for Variety
Think where else you may be making similar a trade-off and then asking yourself: Do I want to be? Moreover, if you had to, could you operate independent of the systems set-up around you?
Next week, I’m going to talk about the story where the phrase, ‘God is Dead!’ originated.
Enjoy your trip.
-Benjamin Anderson
