I was surprised to see the elderly couple pass the front window of the lounge ten minutes after the wolf watch shuttle pulled away from the office. They had started the hike up to the preserve almost three hours earlier. I opened the front door and asked, “Have you seen enough of the wolves and are no longer interested in the talk?” In an exasperated tone the woman replied, “We have been walking for nearly three hours and still have not found them!” I couldn’t believe it. I hurried them into my van and told them I’d give them a ride up so they could join in the talk that had just begun. As we were on our way up through the tent section, the woman sheepishly admitted they had gotten lost. “I can’t understand it” she said, “I’m usually very good with maps, and my husband use to read maps for the Pentagon.” I nearly drew blood as I bit my tongue hard to keep from laughing. I could feel her husband’s embarrassment at her remark. I said a silent prayerof thanks that her husband was retired, as I opened my door to let them out at the preserve. Otherwise, I thought to myself, we may have been bombing Spain instead of Iraq during the Gulf war!
I’ve noticed a subtle shift in the mental capabilities of the general public in the thirty years since I married into the tourism industry. If I were to name one facet of this unfortunate change, it would be the loss of common sense and the ability to follow directions, more specifically map-reading.
The government grants thousands or even millions of dollars, for inane studies on things such as methane gas produced by flatulating cows. I wonder if I could get a grant to study the general public’s lack of ability to function when removed from their “natural habitat” in the urban jungle. Does the lung function improve when taken away from the pollutants that are inhaled day in and day out? Is it the sudden infusion of clean air that clouds their mental capabilities? Perhaps it is the absence of concrete and the exposure to large patches of sky edged by trees, rather than the slivers of sky normally seen between buildings, that disorients them after they take three paces off the sidewalk. Whatever the cause, something needs to be done before all of humanity is wandering around in a daze.
Last week it took more than a half dozen calls for a camper to find our office. They were less than eight miles away. Finally, they called when they were only two turns from the camp. Repeating the directions for the tenth time, I hung up the phone and pulled out a sign-in sheet and pen, marked a car tag and got a map ready for them. A few minutes later, the phone rang again. “We are there but can’t find the office” they complained. Confused, I looked out the window but saw no car. “We are at number 22,” they added. I was more confused now because site 22 is not along the road, and I never saw the car or headlights pass the office. Insisting they were at our campground sign, I walked out the door and scanned the road out front where the sign stood. Still no sign of them.
Finally, after questioning them further, they told me what I wanted to know. “We are at the corner of Wishing Well Road and Frog Pond Road, and are looking at your camping sign.”
I asked, “What does the sign tell you to do?”
“It says turn left.”
“Then turn left,” I replied “And at the end of Wishing Well Road, you will see another sign that tells you to turn left onto Mt. Pleasant Road, and we will be a half mile down on the left” Finally, after six phone calls, thirty minutes, and navigating four roads and four turns in six miles, they arrived.
Somehow over the years, people have lost the power of reasoning and the ability to follow even a simple map. We always highlight the route to their individual campsites in neon color, as we verbalize the instructions. Mind you, every site is numbered, both on the paper map and on the tree in front of each site. We have even gone as far as to walk them to the edge of the sidewalk, point to two bright green recycle barrels, locate the barrels on the map that they have clutched in their hands and tell them to turn right at those barrels. Yet, the moment the key is place in the ignition of their car, they go brain dead, and you watch helplessly as the car glides past the barrels and in the opposite direction from where you just pointed. You can almost see the ineffective spark of neurons in the brain trying to make a solid connection. Yet these same people can find their way through the most difficult mazes on video games, while slaying the various opponents designed to thwart their ability to reach the next challenge. Is the general public becoming incapable of following a map that isn’t electronically changing as they move forward?
The A&P food store is one destination everyone asks directions to. “Make a right out of the campground, go to the end of the road and turn left onto Rt. 94. The A&P is at the first traffic light.” Seriously? How hard is that? Yet they insist on the address so it can be programmed into their GPS. Not only can people not read maps anymore, they cannot follow verbal directions. Ladies room? “Follow the red arrows on the sidewalk around to the other side of the building for the ladies room.” Two seconds later they come back and tell me it is locked. Why? Because they followed the arrows only on the first side of the building, and did not turn the corner along with the arrows and sidewalk, and are trying to get into the maintenance closet. What is it that inhibits the ability for people to take advice or think things through? Is it the preservatives in the foods we eat? The hormones injected into meat? Maybe it’s the pesticides that are used. Although, if that is the case, perhaps we should bring back DDT when simple common sense was… well, common!
Maybe it comes down to the fact that people today feel no obligation to listen to anyone but themselves, and therefore, can’t follow verbal direction because they tuned the speaker out the moment they realized the voice was not their own. Children no longer listen to those in authority, including their parents, and parents don’t listen to their children.
Do you remember when we were young? The teacher would tell all of us to
“put on our thinking caps” when there was a problem or question we didn’t know the answer to. Our brains were always working, ciphering, finding the answers logically, and memorizing. Basic math skills have perished with the calculator. People talk on phones more now than ever, but can’t remember the number they dial multiple times per day because the phone remembers it for them. Writing skills, spelling, and grammar have gone by the wayside, replaced with internet slang and text lingo. Our brains are becoming more obsolete with each technological breakthrough. We have become reliant on machines to do our thinking and guide us to where we want to go. We no longer value the individual thinker and are enslaving ourselves and our children to the fashion and mindset of whoever is in vogue at the present moment, because we no longer think for ourselves. Someone or something is solving all of our problems for us. Are we becoming nothing more than drones? Hmm… are we still in the Milky Way? Or has Earth somehow fallen into the Delta Quadrant and we are now part of a pseudo-race of cybernetic beings referred to in Star Trek as the Borg Collective.
Then again, maybe we are just being poisoned by the gas from farting cows.
