It never fails to amaze me just how random life is. Today, for example, a completely chance encounter with a fellow human being has left me contemplating this fact. To wit, the Great Cartography Incident of 11 May, 2013!
The story begins with the need for a map……
Sure, it was a rather specific type of map, but not exactly exotic. Just a simple topographic map of White Mountain National Forest, preferably in the 1:24,000 scale, preferably printed on Tyvek or at least on water-proof paper. Specific, but not exotic. That’s all I set out to find this day. A map. Honest.
So I did what most people do; I went online and researched with intent to purchase the previously described map, and to my surprise came up short. If you know anything about these topo maps, you should know that the entire surface of the United States has long since been rendered by the USGS into neat little grid squares. I know this. And knowing this, I also know that for decades, retailers have been allowed to sell commercially printed versions of these USGS maps. Further, if you had the patience to negotiate government bureaucracies, you could get these maps for a very nominal fee directly from the USGS. No longer the case. Everything has gone digital, including these extensive USGS surveys, the upside being that you may now download, absolutely for free, the entire rendered surface of the Home of the Brave direct to your hard drive. Great.
Well, not really. The logistics of hauling a laptop out to the mountains and providing for its power needs for days on end escape me, so basically you have to pay someone, Kinko’s I suppose, to large-format print your “free” USGS topo map. See where this is going? All I wanna do is buy a damn topo map. Printed. On paper. Preferably Tyvek. In the 1:24,000 scale.
Time for some brick and mortar shopping. And to be right upfront, I almost always research pretty much anything I am going to buy, from motorcycle tires to topo maps, online whilst I sit in my jammies with a strong cuppa Joe. Saves mucho gas and I can fly from one category of needful thing to another with complete aplomb, for instance, motorcycle tires one minute, topo maps the next. Convenient, logical, efficient. But seldom do I press the “purchase now” button. I like to touch and feel and kick the stuff for which I’m going to hand over my money, so the online research phase complete, I then head out into actual reality to make the actual purchase. This usually works out fine for me, and as far as this map is concerned, yes, it worked out for me this time as well. I did end up with a suitable map, but alas, there was a complication. I met this woman. This woman who sold me the map. Totally random.
Having arrived at the local branch of a well known outdoor gear retailer I really thought it would be a simple matter of walking into the store, locating the printed materials section, and grabbing my desired map. I was greeted at the entrance by a very attractive, very upbeat woman. I mentioned my want of a map and was courteously directed left to, voi la!, the printed materials section, where I searched in vain for my topo map. Sensing my frustration, the aforementioned rather attractive store associate now came over to assist me, and something happened. It was like a short-range Blue Tooth signal; initially easy to resist at a distance but now impossible to ignore as she closed on me. As soon as she was within fourteen feet of me the radiance of her eyes and the playful energy in her voice just ruined me, reduced me to a schoolboy.
Now, I am no shrinking violet here. I’ve been to my share of ice cream socials and I am well past my first rodeo. And I am not easily impressed, maybe even to the point of being a little jaded, but this woman just had an aura I could have just died in and been happy for it. The energy coming off her was intoxicating. She was pretty, athletic, outdoorsy, engaging; to my criteria, the perfect woman. I had to consciously resist, literally, wrapping this girl in my arms and saying something silly like “thank God I finally found you!”. Yeah, it was that bad. And I couldn’t stop staring at her. Creepy on my part, I know, so I averted my eyes occasionally and tried to be cool, because really, who hugs a complete stranger in the middle of her work day, in the middle of a store, and tells her “thank God I found you“? No one that doesn’t want a restraining order, that’s who.
This went on for about twenty minutes, because ironically, she herself now ended up online looking for a map fitting my description. She knew exactly the type of map to which I was referring and was as surprised as I that such maps were getting so damn difficult to find in physical form. And so she stood, iPad in hand, scouring her own store’s web resources and also made several phone calls to other locations within the chain, all the while holding me in orbit within that fourteen foot radius.
Let me now circle back to the beginning of this little diatribe and explain why this chance encounter has me thinking about the random nature of life and living. As a healthy, single male of consenting age I always have the “search for mate” subroutine running in the background while I go about my daily business. It’s part of the operating system encoded into my white and grey matter BIOS. And being presently in search of a mate, I’ve begun to think how really narrow is the pool of candidates from which we all choose that person to whom we endeavor to devote our lives, our time, and our affection.
So here it is: like everyone else, I am just another marble rolling around on a gigantic cookie sheet. Theoretically, I could end up next to any other marble (including my perfect match, for instance a beautiful girl who sells maps and other outdoor goods) on this cookie sheet, but for the most part, we end up bumping up against a very small percentage of the overall population of marbles. That small percentage is first and foremost restricted to those geographically closest to us, i.e., where we live and work. And then there is secondary randomized expansion of the pool created by certain choices we make, some big, most small. For instance, you can spread yourself around a bit, go to school out of state, get a new job, join a gym, take underwater basket weaving classes at the Y and you, my friend, have increased your odds of running into and hopefully forming a bond with that one person in the whole world who is really your perfect match. Or you can walk into an outdoor equipment retailer looking for a map. You just never know.
Because really, do you know which of these moves is the right move? Do you really know what move you need to make in order to be in the exact position necessary for when the planets finally align and the one meant for you is standing right in front of you? (looking for a map on an iPad?) No, you don’t know. It’s all random. And that’s the crux of the matter. I put more conscious thought into selecting a map, whereas a profoundly more important choice, the selection of someone with whom I’d like to share my life, isn’t really a selection at all. That pseudo-selection usually occurs from a very narrow pool of candidates presented by pure chance. Put another way, I researched to a fairly exhaustive level the candidate pool of maps available to me, then chose the one that suited me best whereas most people (me included) don’t put in anything remotely close to an “exhaustive search” for a mate. Most people just settle for someone in a tiny pool of convenient random candidates with coincidental geographic proximity. And that’s the sad truth. The thought applied to the selection of consumer goods would seem to trump that applied to finding a mate. Weird.
Had I even walked into that same store one minute before or one minute after, my cartographic muse might have been otherwise engaged with a different customer, and I would never have met her and I would not have consequently had the epiphany that the people who do end up in our life come from a very small pool of candidates, meaning that zillions of other more appropriate matches will never even be considered. By example, what I mean to say is, suppose I struck up a conversation with this woman, went out for organic fair-trade coffee, and lived happily ever after. Suppose that being with her made me as happy and complete as I could possibly hope to be. Now, instead imagine I get stuck at just one more red light on the way to the store and never end up talking with her. Or I hit one extra green light, arrive early, and thus never talk to her. No Blue Tooth signal magic spell. No organic fair-trade coffee. No happily ever after. All because of one traffic light. Mind boggling. I wonder if she prefers tea?
globalstrider 