Google Take the Wheel
Picture it – it’s a cold, snowy morning commute. The road is a stream of brake lights as you and your fellow commuters inch along. You relent and call on your friend in waiting, “Hey Google, directions to the office.” Google calculates away and conveys the obvious, “Slower traffic than normal.” REALLY? And I do it – I give it all to Google. For the next 45 minutes I mindlessly do as I’m told – all awhile wondering if this route is any faster but relieved to be moving at least. (Not sure why, but I find a little solace in at least moving.) The silver lining – I saw sites I’d likely never have seen if my normal, highway-based route wasn’t a parking lot. It’s amazing to me the peace I felt in surrendering…surrendering to Google.
It’s amazing to me how such complicated technology is commoditized and taken for granted. How Google knows where you are and where you are going – even in the most remote areas. This amazement lasted until it didn’t. Let me tell you…
Its lunchtime now and I’m heading to “the sticks” to meet a friend at his home for lunch. I punch in the address and Google takes control. East on 694 – check! North on 35 – check! East on County Rd 9 – check! As the route gets more remote and my familiarity of the area fades the unexpected, yet somehow expected, happens, “Searching for GPS.” Oh Crap! My mind is reeling now. You’ve been here before…think! Do I turn here? Do I remember that gas station? I check the phone hoping but no, “Searching for GPS.” I’m sweating now – even though its 5 degrees out. I’m getting desperate – thinking I’m going to have to do the unspeakable and call my friend for directions. Every man’s worst nightmare! And then it happens – for an instant the map shifts from the “Searching from GPS” with the map frozen from where I WAS 10 minutes ago to where I am NOW. And then back to “Searching.” And then an instant with an updated map along my planned route, and back to “Searching.” Amazing. Like a bread crumb trail.
Reminds me of a scene from the movie Apollo 13 where a reporter is interviewing the flight commander Jim Lovell and asks Jim if there’s a specific instance in an airplane emergency when you recall fear. Jim Lovell answers:
Uh well, I’ll tell ya, I remember this one time – I’m in a Banshee at night in combat conditions, so there’s no running lights on the carrier. It was the Shrangri-La, and we were in the Sea of Japan and my radar had jammed, and my homing signal was gone… because somebody in Japan was actually using the same frequency. And so, it was – it was leading me away from where I was supposed to be. And I’m looking down at a big, black ocean, so I flip on my map light, and then suddenly: zap. Everything shorts out right there in my cockpit. All my instruments are gone. My lights are gone. And I can’t even tell now what my altitude is. I know I’m running out of fuel, so I’m thinking about ditching in the ocean. And I, I look down there, and then in the darkness there’s this uh, there’s this green trail. It’s like a long carpet that’s just laid out right beneath me. And it was the algae, right? It was that phosphorescent stuff that gets churned up in the wake of a big ship. And it was – it was – it was leading me home. You know? If my cockpit lights hadn’t shorted out, there’s no way I’d ever been able to see that. So, uh, you, uh, never know… what… what events are to transpire to get you home. (Bolding is mine.)
Ok ok – I know my “searching for GPS” scenario sounds a little lame compared to a fuel-deprived aircraft over a dark ocean in the middle of a war, but it doesn’t change the fact that in the middle of my weakness, uncertainty, doubt, panic – a way forward was provided to me. I confess – this is far from an isolated incident for me. When I am troubled, frustrated, uncertain – and I dare to “get out of my own way”, in the words of Jim Lovell, “you never know…what…what events are to transpire to get you home.”
I’m curious – is there a time you can remember being “lost” and “somehow” found your way home? Can you describe the feeling? What is the lesson in the experience for YOU?