The Road Not Taken, Again

Google Maps recently put our ranch on the road to El Paso. Logistically this doesn’t make any sense at all, yet several people have ignored the signs leaving our tiny town of Animas: Warning! No Service Ahead, Pavement Ends Next 20 Miles, End State Maintenance. They have ignored reason and instead have followed Google Maps’ prompt to turn left onto the dirt road that leads straight to our cattle guard, a mile off the pavement, and into our driveway. And they have ignored our flailing hands as they drive around the property looking for the road that will take them to the great state of Texas. One woman nearly ran over our dogs as she barreled down our runway toting a camper trailer behind her pick up. Ron finally caught up with her on the four wheeler and found her so flustered, she nearly toppled the trailer as she cranked the wheel 180 degrees to hightail it out of here. Last night while we were getting ready for bed, moving truck pulled in. Ron ran out in his pajamas to find out what the hell was going on. A few minutes later he came in shaking his head. “That guy was looking for Nogales.” Impressive, I thought. Nogales is a border town 193 miles west of here.

There is a correlation between the dependence on technology and our dwindling common sense that I fear is not being studied or addressed. The more we rely on our smart phones, lap tops, and tablets, the less we trust on our own good judgement. And I think we are all guilty of it. Not to the degree that I would turn off a paved road to get to a major city, but still. Last week Ron and I met my sister Kelli and her husband, Carl, along with another couple in San Antonio for Saint Patrick’s Day. Ron used flight software to get us to a local airport. We used the Airbnb app to select a place to stay, another for restaurant recommendations, and the Uber app to get around town. For our willingness to count on technology, we meandered up and down the river walk while Google and Visa tracked our every move collecting data on our preferences from what we like to eat to where we like to shop.

Totalitarian novels like George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World were the canaries in the mine warning us of what was to come. Whether it’s succumbing to Big Brother— i.e. Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc.— as Winston does in Nineteen Eighty-Four or rebuking it as John does in Brave New World, we are at a crossroads. I can’t imagine pulling out a map or asking for directions any more than I can getting lost in an unfamiliar city. But there is a price to pay for the ease and convenience of technology. As we become more dependent on apps, social media, and search engines to make our lives easier, we are whittling away at our free will. When a big yellow and red sign reads: Warning! No Service Ahead, it is time to turn around regardless of what your phone may be telling you.

Apps like Goggle Maps are available to assist us, not to replace us. As Robert Frost reminds us in his poem “The Road Not Taken,” in the end, we are gifted a discerning mind:

… Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.