There is that cartoon of someone standing in front of a map that is blank but for a dot and an arrow labled “you are here”.
Like, who’s not lost?
As a kid, it used to worry me because, you know, your parents are acting, say, a little weird, you go on an outing (“The things we used to do together when you were a kid,” they’ll say to you later) somewhere way the hell out somewhere and you have neither any idea where you are nor how you would get anywhere else should they abandon you nor a good reason why they wouldn’t abandon you. You are entirely at their mercy. They think they are doing some nice family thing, and you’re scared stiff because what if?
Because everything is a matter of life and death.
As a kid, I thought you outgrew it.
Adults can drive cars, they can read maps and they have money, ergo adults don’t get lost. Perhaps the condition of unlostness is what defines an adult, defined one to me as a kid.
An adult knows the ropes. Knows where they are. Can change a lock.
I can assemble the trickiest furniture Ikea can think up, but I still am lost.
That doesn’t change.
I think if you’re not lost, you’re just not looking hard enough.
I think if you’re not lost, climb up on something and look over the walls of your cubicle.
But it doesn’t matter. Because you’re here.
It no longer bothers me. You live, what, a few days without food under most conditions, and I’ll never be somewhere so isolated where I’d go longer without a bite or a drink.
I get lost, it’s usually in cities, or in the woods near where I live.
I do it on purpose now. For enjoyment.
Nothing more fun than wandering aimlessly in the woods (of course, these woods, they’re finite and bordered by a river and villages and roads. Walk in any direction and you’re back out in half an hour, hour tops. I’m not advocating, you know, madcap behavior), unless it’s wandering aimlessly in the city, which I’m going to do with my daughter in about an hour.
I’m just saying, getting lost is not the problem. The problem is usually starving, freezing, or being eaten by a large predator.
Lost is, who’s not lost?
Lost is this. This is lost.