by Dana Dwinell-Yardley

Do you know where you are? Do you know where you're going? Do you know how to get there?

These are good questions, often asked when examining one's life goals or larger purpose. But today I'm asking them in the most literal, physical sense: do you know where you are, right now? If you wanted to go somewhere else — somewhere you hadn't been before, perhaps — how would you figure out which way to go?

Okay, now turn off your electronic devices and answer again.

I have been on several trips this past year where I rode in a friend's car to a place neither of us had driven before. How did we navigate? Everyone had a GPS unit in their car to direct our travels. And I mean everyone: at a recent gathering in Boston, I was the only one of five with no GPS in my car or on my (nonexistent) mobile phone.

People seem to love and loathe their GPS in equal measure — some friends say it makes traveling that much less stressful, others detest the incessant computerized voice giving directions (a recent storyline in the comic strip Doonesbury has been riffing on the GPS voice) — but they all rely on it.

Heading to an unknown restaurant with one such GPS-bound friend, we took a wrong turn and the GPS started giving us erroneous directions, leading us around and around a circle of one-way streets (this is Boston, remember). My friend kept punching commands into the GPS unit, rearranging it on the dashboard, looking inward at the same failing solution instead of trying something new. How about a map? Or asking someone on the street for directions? Or simply looking at our surroundings for a moment and reorienting ourselves?

Our society's reliance on car-mounted GPS units is, of course, well rivaled by our reliance on our mobile telephones: cell phones, smartphones, iPhones, phones for listening to music, photographing, playing games, watching TV, reading newspapers, and — oh, yeah — for communicating with other people. At another recent gathering — a retreat-like space away from jobs and family and regular life, even — I was the only one of 26 with no cell phone.

Yep, I wasn't kidding about that "nonexistent" thing: I don't own a cell phone. Repeat: Do. Not. Own.

I am writing today in defense of the map, the Atlas & Gazeteer, the compass, the wise friend, the friendly stranger, common sense, intuition, groundedness. I write to hold up the power of a handwritten letter, a face-to-face conversation, body language, time away, time to think — not to mention libraries and live music!

I don't mean to disparage technology. I do have a laptop, and an iPod. I have a Facebook account. I write a blog, for heaven's sake. Modern technology does have incredible power to connect us with each other and with vast amounts of information. We can't ignore technology's presence in our lives and its place in the sustainability movement: rather, we have what is almost an obligation to engage with it, to use it for gathering grassroots power and fostering community.

But I would argue that we need something more in our move toward independence. It is time for a great reskilling. We need to relearn map-reading. Relearn improvisation and self-sufficiency. Relearn patience. Relearn our sense of place. Relearn the cultivation of healthy, non-battery-powered relationships. Relearn how to live not merely connected to the world, but in the world.

I said this was going to be a literal blog post, but I think it's a little metaphysical as well. We can't move toward the restaurant of societal transformation until we are willing to try something different, let go of that which insulates and divides and distracts us, and engage with our communities and our environs in all their messy reality.

We can start by detaching ourselves from our devices and being right here, right now, in this moment, in this cold, dark December weather in our little state of Vermont. It is, after all, the season of guiding stars — no GPS required.

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About Common Sense
Common Sense is written by Jane Dwinell and Dana Dwinell-Yardley, a mother-daughter blog team. After homesteading in Vermont for over 25 years, Jane now splits her time between a small canal boat in France and a friendly neighborhood in New Orleans. Dana, inspired by her upbringing, resides in a container-garden-and-housemate-crazy Montpelier home. Send Jane and Dana your questions and comments about food, fuel, family, or financial independence! Write to mountaingirl at vtlink dot net. You can also check out some of their other writings at their website: Spirit of Life Publishing.