The Less Traveled Road

It might be because my existence right now at age 55 is fairly predictable that I have been opting to take alternate routes to locations recently. It is good to see new sights, have fresh experiences. Although. I must note that even things we believe to be familiar are not really if we think about it and have eyes to see and ears to hear. However, it is helpful to decide on taking different roads to even routine destinations and enjoying the journey there. The differences are more obvious and harder to miss due to autopilot.

Call it my staving off dementia plan. The human mind craves new information and if all we are doing is giving it a steady diet of sameness, it atrophies and begins to die. Neurological pathways no longer are formed, and existing pathways are not routinely cleared by complexity.   

To wit, yesterday I was meeting a buddy and his son to kayak out on Speedwell Forge. There is a very predictable way to get there up on Route 501 through Lititz. A straight shot for the most part, one that even I could do with my paltry sense of direction until the last couple of miles that have some tricky turns. On Google Maps, there was another route that was only a few minutes longer but was on mostly unknown roads on the way up. The trade-off of time versus novelty seemed to be a good one and away I went.

Lancaster County has a lot of beautiful farmland still, even though development certainly has encroached on the richest soil of the earth to put up Big Box stores, housing, and suburban sprawl. Stuff you could put in the desert. Yet, away on these back roads, there is still a lot of rural and small towns happening. Maybe only a couple of miles away from the strip mall but still separated by cultural and historical boundaries not easily broken. It has been fun and interesting to drive these paths, to go on the road less traveled, and see a way of life that still moves slower than a Pop Star's Twitter post about something inane. 

I worry that technology is making us passive consumers versus active learners, that we can press a search and find what we want in nanoseconds. I further fear that technology in the hands of totalitarians, such as the Chinese Ruling Hegemons, will eliminate choices. Think about self-driving cars for example that have been programmed to not drive to certain locations. So much for Freedom of Assembly.

In the meantime, I intend to use the technology available to actually work against the centralizing and commodification of information as much as possible. I suppose this blog in a way is an effort to work against simplicity and group think, where algorithms steer users to information that only harden and confirms biases and gaps. Think about the Left and Right. Firing salvos over the bow, taking little time to understand that perhaps the other side might have a piece of Truth that your side doesn't.

I enjoy online debate, maybe too much sometimes. Yet, I rarely enter an argument where I haven't already developed a reasoned perspective through a lot of reading, listening, and watching, often perspectives I don't agree with in their entirety if at all. James tells his readers to be "Quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger." Now, that is a less traveled road.