darkemeralds (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
darkemeralds) wrote2010-11-10 08:05 pm
darkemeralds) wrote2010-11-10 08:05 pm
Directionally challenged
I discovered this function on my new Android phone last night. Well, okay, my 14 year old nephew showed it to me:
You push a button and say, "Navigate to 1234 Southwest 5th Avenue."
And it tells you how to get there.
I know, I know: people who've had iPhones for years, or who have GPS in their car, are no longer impressed by this. And people who actually have a sense of direction could never, ever be as thrilled about it as I am.
But I have no sense of direction. It's a borderline handicap, a slight but very real disability, that carries all kinds of baggage: it's funny to people, it's goofy, it's "feminine," it's an allowable form of "stupidity" for an otherwise very bright, creative person. It's also annoying and incomprehensible to people who don't suffer from it. They think I'm just not trying. "Come on!" they'll say. "Just picture the route in your head!"
There's no picture there. On a good day, if I know that that's west over there (because the sun is setting or I can see the West Hills, or the Pacific Ocean or something obvious), then I can painstakingly work out that to the right of west is north, and to the right of that is east, and to the right of that is south, using the "Never Eat Shredded Wheat" trick. But I can't feel it, and even if I can see it, I'm unsure.
As a prosthetic aid, I have whole catalogs of street names and their sequence memorized from long residence in my hometown. Jefferson Street is south of Madison Street, so if I set out from Madison and come to Jefferson, I can deduce that I'm heading south. If I come to Salmon, on the other hand, I know I've gone north. I cannot sense directions. When I'm moving, I'm just heading forward. When I turn left, I'm still heading forward. That's all I've got.
I've burned a lot of calories and a lot of gasoline over the years correcting for this handicap.
So when I got in my car this morning and said to my phone, "Navigate to [XYZ Address in unfamiliar neighborhood]" and my phone talked to me, right in my ear, and said, "Head west on NE Beech Street and turn right on NE 11th Avenue," and kept telling me exactly when and where to turn--well, I'm not exaggerating when I say I felt like I'd been let out of a prison.
And when I got to where I was going and there was a Google Street View of the destination house right there on my phone screen looking exactly like reality, I wish I could describe the sense of safety and security it gave me.
When I think that I ever, ever ventured out without this tool, I am amazed at myself.
You push a button and say, "Navigate to 1234 Southwest 5th Avenue."
And it tells you how to get there.
I know, I know: people who've had iPhones for years, or who have GPS in their car, are no longer impressed by this. And people who actually have a sense of direction could never, ever be as thrilled about it as I am.
But I have no sense of direction. It's a borderline handicap, a slight but very real disability, that carries all kinds of baggage: it's funny to people, it's goofy, it's "feminine," it's an allowable form of "stupidity" for an otherwise very bright, creative person. It's also annoying and incomprehensible to people who don't suffer from it. They think I'm just not trying. "Come on!" they'll say. "Just picture the route in your head!"
There's no picture there. On a good day, if I know that that's west over there (because the sun is setting or I can see the West Hills, or the Pacific Ocean or something obvious), then I can painstakingly work out that to the right of west is north, and to the right of that is east, and to the right of that is south, using the "Never Eat Shredded Wheat" trick. But I can't feel it, and even if I can see it, I'm unsure.
As a prosthetic aid, I have whole catalogs of street names and their sequence memorized from long residence in my hometown. Jefferson Street is south of Madison Street, so if I set out from Madison and come to Jefferson, I can deduce that I'm heading south. If I come to Salmon, on the other hand, I know I've gone north. I cannot sense directions. When I'm moving, I'm just heading forward. When I turn left, I'm still heading forward. That's all I've got.
I've burned a lot of calories and a lot of gasoline over the years correcting for this handicap.
So when I got in my car this morning and said to my phone, "Navigate to [XYZ Address in unfamiliar neighborhood]" and my phone talked to me, right in my ear, and said, "Head west on NE Beech Street and turn right on NE 11th Avenue," and kept telling me exactly when and where to turn--well, I'm not exaggerating when I say I felt like I'd been let out of a prison.
And when I got to where I was going and there was a Google Street View of the destination house right there on my phone screen looking exactly like reality, I wish I could describe the sense of safety and security it gave me.
When I think that I ever, ever ventured out without this tool, I am amazed at myself.
no subject
people always say things like: go south about a quarter mile, then go east on x street, etc, etc. and i have absolutely no idea what the fuck they are talking about. lately i just tell people that i have my gps and i'm gonna use it but they still keep trying to give me instructions. i just nod and say thanks but it goes in one ear and out the other!
and i am terrible at remembering how to get places until i've navigated the same route at least 4 or 5 times. and then, once i memorize a route, don't ask me to detour 'cause i will get lost. i have nothing in my head that lets me figure out a new route unless the areas is extremely familiar (and that's a very small series of areas which i've driven in for years where)
that's why the gps i got for christmas one year was pretty much the best gift ever!
and well, with my phone - the google navigator is fucking awesome! although i've never tried to talk to it!! i just click it, type in my destination and let it tell me where to turn. i've learned how to see the route info, and future steps and even how to ask for a detour or alternate route choices (like when there is construction or it's telling me to use the expressway and i want to take the streets)
although, the weirdest thing happened today. my friend and i were going to an address (it was 1600 s. oak park) and for some unknown reason the gps on her phone directed her to 13th & maple and declared that it was our destination despite displaying on the screen that it was 1600 s. oak park! we were completely puzzled. and yes! a picture of the destination popped up! it was so weird! i put the address in my phone's gps and it told me how to get to the correct location.
ok. i'd better get to bed now!! ttys!!
no subject
Google maps aren't perfect yet, of course, and I know that Android apps will use cell towers and wifi signals for location when they can't get a GPS signal--maybe that's what happened too you?
no subject
no subject
There is ONE place on this planet, an area about 2 miles in diameter that I arrived at, in the dark, after the bus I was on had done a U turn and dropped a very sleepy me off. In that ONE place North is South and South is North and it hasn't changed over the years.
On the other hand I cannot tell right from left. Like you with direction I can eventually work it out on most days, but not always.
In a hunter-gatherer society a variety of skills are crucial to keeping the group alive. The person who has memorized the route will absolutely know the route year after year. The person like me, who operates on an instinctive level may get hit over the head one day and need to be dragged down the path!!
My bet is that you have some skills I completely lack, I might be able to guide you there, but you will be able to do other things that are just as valuable, or more so. We are all broken in some ways and very strong in others.
no subject
So I'm wondering if something similar is working in the instance you mention: the disorienting and probably very disturbing event of literally waking to find yourself in a strange place continues to operate in that one place.
I mention it because of a weird, opposite effect I noticed yesterday. My destination was up near the neighborhood where I lived until age 11. I have no reason to go there in my adult life, and never do. But as I was kind of blindly following my Google Navigation instructions, I came to a street corner and suddenly knew exactly where I was. It was as if the map settled around me and I knew exactly where to turn to get to my old childhood house, the park, the houses of long-forgotten childhood friends.
Since I know that my disorienting trauma occurred about a year after my family moved to that house, I surmise that I'm pretty well oriented to the tiny orbit I traveled prior to the event, and foggy on most everything that came later.
Your two-mile circle sounds strangely similar.