#Navigation a daft mistake & conspiracy theorists

Have you ever done this?

Many people make this mistake.

You are navigating - map reading - or chart reading. Using a GPS perhaps.

You are on a committed course.

You check your position.

You check the map - what you should see - you look up - with what you are actually seeing.

It doesn't quite fit. It isn't quite right.

This is where it can all go wrong.

This is where you can make a big mistake.

You convince yourself what you are actually seeing does somehow fit the map.

What is your motivation?

Maybe it is because you are an optimist - it will somehow come right. (that's me - lol)

Maybe because you do not want to face up to wasted effort and have to back track or make major adjustment.

Maybe it is hubris. Maybe you cannot admit to yourself  or your crew - your friends - your family - you have made a mistake.

Whatever the reason ploughing on regardless is rarely the right answer. The sensible thing to do is recalibrate and get back on the right track.

If you don't you will seriously end up in the wrong place. (the snooker ball a half inch out at cuing is 6 inches out by the time it gets to the other end of the table!) You may end up a blind alley or in a deep hole so to speak. Turning back will become harder and harder the more doggedly you follow the wrong course.

This I think can be a lesson in life.

People get on the wrong path - lets say conspiracy theorists or deniers as an ideal example. A new reality does not fit their narrative - but they make it fit. They choose to see or hear the bits that fit but blindly choose to ignore the decisive bits that don't. They are on the wrong course but they are committed to it in some daft way.

What can happen? Their world gets smaller and smaller. They are lost. They are going nowhere. They are up a blind alley. The saddest thing is it often leads to alienation - isolation - and personal destruction and unhappiness because their views become less and less sustainable under objective rational scrutiny and they annoy people. This is the lot of the conspiracy theorist. Their world becomes a downward spiral. Almost always they have made a fundamental navigation error some way back and have failed to deal with it. Is it too late to turn back and get on the right road? The navigators dilemma! In the end you have no choice. Stop digging the hole. Give yourself a break. But it can be a long hard journey - even just to get back to the start again in order to find the right path. A sailing analogy - you might have to beat into the wind - alas - but if it is the only way to get there that is what you have to do. xxx