WHEN THE MAP AND THE GROUND DO NOT AGREE

      Daniel Boone, the legendary pioneer and explorer, was asked if he had ever been lost.  He supposedly said "I ain't ever been lost but there were them three or four days when I was powerful confused about where I was."  Much of his travels were without the convenience of a map.

    I saw the map pictured below in a restaurant in Georgetown, South Carolina, several years ago.  I knew that it 'looked different' and close examination revealed that it was a 1935 map of the US 
. . . notice the absence of interstate highways.  Likely, most of the roads on there still exist . . . but travel with this guide could be slow, cumbersome, and just plain inconvenient. . . or, powerful confusing.  We contemporary 'Boone's' often find ourselves 'powerful confused' about our location and bearings because our life 'map' is outdated and no longer reflects the new terrain.

   Dr. Gordon Livingston in his book,  Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now, wrote of a field exercise that he as a young army lieutenant experienced at Fort Bragg, NC.  His sergeant saw him studying his map and asked if anything were wrong.  Livingston replied that according to the map, there should be a mountain over there and he saw none.  Whereupon the sergeant replied, 'Sir, if the map and the ground don't agree, then the map is wrong.'  He said he knew that he had just heard wisdom spoken.

     How do our 'maps' become outdated and at variance with 'the ground' ?  And, what can we do to prevent them (and ourselves) from becoming obsolete?  As for how, we can inquire about forces and factors ---within ourselves and in our world --- that cause CHANGE.  It is a 'challenge' to come to terms with this process that happens to our bodies, our institutions, our relationships, indeed, to everything.

     In 1971, I heard my grand-father at 87 recount the changes that he had witnessed since he came to America around 1890: the automobile, the radio, the television, airplanes, man on the moon, penicillin, nuclear  weapons and energy were among the most obvious.   And  he died before computers, the internet, smart phones, and all that goes with the new technology.  That's a lot of new 'Ground' around which to redraw one's life 'maps'.  

   On an individual level, life-expectancy far outdistances that of even a century ago.  That change can be attributable in large measure to improved nutrition, medical innovations and discoveries, as well as to levels of public education.  This demographic shift brings with it new implications around a long-standing query: 'how old is  OLD?  Once, when as a 66 year old I was bounding up a flight of  steps, a stranger informed me that to her 58 was old.  I would not want to navigate my life using her map.

    What to retain, what of the new to embrace?  A young woman once said to Thomas Carlyle: "Sir, I accept the universe." To which the crusty old man replied: "My God, you'd better !"  Conversely, dad enjoyed telling the story of a young minister who reviewed with one of the deacons the many changes in the parish that had occurred since the pastor's arrival. 'We've changed this and we've changed that'. To which the Deacon replied, 'Yes. And I have been against every damned one of them.'  To dad, the hero of that anecdote was not the stubborn old man.

    I have noticed that the 'Maps' by which I lived my 40's, 50's and even parts of my 60's no longer agree with the ground on which I now live.  And, like Dan'l Boone, sometimes it has been powerful confusing.  Listening to friends and to clients, I know that such is the case for all except for the most encrusted dinosaurs among us.  And, even for those long-extinct creatures, their inability to adapt meant that their maps no longer coincided with the ground on which they lived.  "And the rest is History." By contrast, folks who strive to keep living by updating their maps have some impressive names . . .like Pioneers, like Explorers.  I much prefer to be called one of those than Dinosaur.

     Satchel