When technology breaks, it can be disastrous – planes can fall from the sky, votes can be manipulated, your vibrator data could be pilfered (true story and it was done on purpose), and all other sorts of weird things. On my drive home recently, I noticed that I was driving North (but I should be traveling South as I am coming from the North), and I nearly had a heart attack: “How long had it been since I had left the gas station?” “How much back tracking had I done?” “Shit snacks on a turd cracker, I can’t believe this is happened.” Then I calmed myself, I hadn’t made a mistake.
I looked up and found the Sun: it was off to my right and it was late afternoon. With that quick assessment, I was transported back in time and leveraged my hiking/camping knowledge to correct the compass in my car – I was traveling South. But boy was it weird constantly looking down at the compass and seeing it tell me the exact opposite of what I was doing at that time.
It was unnerving, surreal, and uncomfortable. Everything I did, I thought I was doing wrong. So then I thought about, when did I choose technology’s answer over my own? Clearly I have deduced that the technology in my car was incorrect and that the Sun (which has been doing it far longer) was giving me the appropriate information I needed to make it home. Not only that, all the signs indicating I was traveling the correct direction. Yet, seeing that little N each time I looked down provided me a healthy dose of anxiety.
Perhaps, I need to cut out the technology and get back to the basics. Time to buy a sextant. (Secondary note: Sun is a pronoun, there should be no the before it, but I know people are used to seeing “the Sun” in text. I’ll write about my issues with “the Sun” but for now, know it pains me to write that).