Getting Lost Might Be The Last Great Fantasy Of The 21st Century

When was the last time you were lost?

I used to teach English in Lyon, France. It isn’t the biggest city in the world, but big enough to get lost in.

And I did. Many times. Regularly ending up in industrial estates or backstreets looking for the offices of the clients I was meant to be teaching. Lost in the labyrinth of an old French city with no way out.

This was 2011.

Smartphones were available, but I didn’t have one — just an old Nokia 105, which had a call and text function. Plus an FM radio. So I used ‘old-fashioned’ maps to navigate my way around the city to get to my clients.

You might think it was stressful. And from time to time it was. Often I was late and sometimes I wouldn’t find them at all. Calling my boss on my Nokia to say I had no idea where I was.

Yes, it was stressful, but I enjoyed it. Teaching never gave me a thrill, but getting lost did.

I saw parts of the city I would have never seen. Sometimes I would drop into a bar for a coffee or a quick beer. An Englishman dressed in chinos, sipping a beer, smoking a cigarette, while the locals looked at me.

“The tourist area is that way,” one guy sarcastically once told me in English.

When I replied in French that I lived here and that I was working, he nodded and bought me a drink. You wouldn’t get that service in the UNESCO-registered city centre!

(Image/Columbia Pictures)

Do you remember the scene in The Shawshank Redemption when Andy plays the Duettino Sull’aria from The Marriage of Figaro over the prison speakers? He knows he’s going to get punished, but he doesn’t care. For those few moments, he’s in paradise.

That’s how I felt some days. Sitting in a bar, knowing I would get into trouble, but not caring. Lost but happy.

If I had Google Maps back then, none of this would have happened. I would have never had my Shawshank Redemption moment. I would have opened up Google Maps, and there I would be: a flashing blue circle. Two million years of human evolution, orienteering, hunting and gathering, reduced to a flashing blue dot on a 4×6 screen.

It’s difficult to get lost these days.

Even if Google Maps leads you down a blind alley, which is common. It’s not the same. You’re lost, but you’re not lost. Because even if you’ve gone down a dead end, you know where you are.

The blue circle tells you.

(Image/Google)

A paper map tells you nothing. It’s just lines and squiggles. The skill is to locate yourself by looking at what’s around you: buildings, signs, the Sun. Or failing that, ask someone. Preferably in a café or a bar.

Many people will disagree. Many will argue that technology helps us.

Why would I want to get lost!

It’s a fair comment. I personally enjoy getting lost in strange cities, but most people don’t. For many, having the safety (or perceived safety) of a phone in their pocket is a great comfort. It might save your life. Or at least prevent you from getting lost.

Until your phone goes dead.

Then what? How will you find your way home? How will you call a taxi? How will you know where to go? Or will we just fumble around in the darkness once again like our prehistoric ancestors?

Lost.

It’s getting more and more difficult to argue against technology. I use it now as much as everyone else. But by living like this, how can we develop if we always know where we are? If the path is laid out in front of us.

I go from A to B in 23 minutes. Then go to C in 12 minutes. Then return to A in 15.

That’s what my teaching days would have looked like if I had had a phone back then.

I might have got to my lessons on time, but I wouldn’t have ended up in those lonely cafés in Vénissieux, Bron or Ouillons. No, I would have been back at the school where I worked, sipping a coffee in a lifeless staff room, staring at the wall.

Where’s the fun in that?

This looks fun (Photo by Alyona Chipchikova on Unsplash)

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For more lost comedy, check out 21st Century Comedy here.

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