Navigating: The World Has Moved On, Part 6 — January 30, 2026 – John Agliata

THE DAILY UPDATE

I quite convinced that if we took members of today’s generation, brought them back to May 14, 1804, and said, “Today’s generation, meet Lewis and Clark. Lewis and Clark, meet today’s generation. They are going to be your navigators,” we never would have heard of Lewis and Clark. They would have been dead before reaching the Missourah border, lost in some sort of wilderness hellscape in which they go around in circles until they starve to death.

What I’m getting at is this: The world has moved on and left our ability to navigate in its wake. I’m as guilty of this as the next guy. There was a time in which I could navigate across long distances after looking at a map before sliding my car into “D.” Many times, I could get from here to there just by feel, knowing the general direction of where I needed to go and making sure my car was heading that way based on the position of the sun or some random landmark.

Now, I use Apple Maps (don’t judge me) to get from here to anywhere. Oh, I say that it’s because I want to ensure I don’t drive smack into the middle of an accident-induced traffic jam, of which there are many in this godforsaken land. But in truth, it’s so I don’t have to think, so I don’t have to navigate. And because it’s a habit … a nasty habit, like picking your nose.

I understand and appreciate the convenience of GPS mapping, be it Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze, or whatever else might be out there. But none of it is making us smarter. In fact, it’s making us quite dumb.

I have lived in this little section of Missourah since 2017. Still, I use Apple Maps no matter where I’m going. Do I honestly think there’s going to be a traffic jam between here and Wal-Mart, a drive that takes me on two country roads to a back road that leads into a rear entrance of the retail behemoth? Puuulease. And if there were a traffic jam? So what? It’s not like my time is so precious that I can’t just, ya know, sit in it. Listen to music. Think deep thoughts.

The world moving on from navigating has ruined the usefulness of gas station attendants. There was a time in which those folks needed to know something. Not only did they pump your gas and check your oil, they could tell us how to get un-lost, primarily by giving us a landmark that would indicate we’d gone too far. Iowans were great at that. “Now if you reach the cemetery with the big angel on the gate, you’ve gone too far. Turn around at Mary’s Sudz-n-Stuf and head on back and turn left at the split tree that was hit by lightning back in 1953.”

Now, not only would your average gas station attendant not be able to find your oil dipstick within 10 guesses, he or she wouldn’t have a clue how to get you un-lost and would likely tell you to just use your GPS.

So not only are we dumber as drivers, we’ve made gas station attendants dumber and hold them to no standard of usefulness.

And here’s the thing: All of this space stuff that makes GPS work can go away. Solar storms, hostile space-enabled countries, random space junk … they all could fry the satellites that underpin your reliance on Google Maps to get to your doctor’s appointment or your mom’s house or pick your kids up from school.

In defense of GPS, I will say this: My wife and I have, um, disagreed a lot less when we are on road trips since its advent. There was a time in which she directed me on a “shortcut” from our college in Iowa to her home in Missourah that turned out to be a three-hour detour and my first experience with exactly how “rural” rural Missourah can be. There might have been some sharp words exchanged during those three hours.

But do you know how we found our way out of that little mess? A motherflippin’ gas station attendant! That’s how.

So here’s my challenge: Don’t use GPS for one whole day in which you have some driving to do. If you get stuck in a traffic jam, use the time to be bored. If you get lost, find your way out of it — and maybe stop at a restaurant or store you see while you’re doing so. Keep your head up instead of on that stupid little screen in your console. Look around you. There’s an amazing world out there. Experience it. And if all else fails, ask a gas station attendant. He’ll use his phone GPS to help you get un-lost, and he’ll have a fun story to tell his friends and family about the doofus who didn’t have a GPS.

Humans are meant to navigate. We’ve been doing it since we became humans, or at least something approximating humans. Technology might make our lives easier in this department, but it also makes us stupider. Like an unused muscle, our ability to navigate has atrophied.

The world has, indeed, moved on.