We Are Compasses

On my desk I have a compass. It is of the same type that my late father had in his aircraft when he, as navigator, had to ensure that the crew reached their destination safely, even across vast expanses of featureless sea.

Just such a compass helped him to find the battleship that shot him out of the sky in 1941, by a strange quirk of fate saving his life. For as a prisoner of war he at least got to survive the conflict.

The compass on my desk deflects slightly if you move it closer to any wiring or the associated magnetic fields of a computer. A good navigator knows exactly how much that deflection will be, and calculates accordingly.

We’re all like compasses. We get deflected by forces we can’t see, and we stop being our real selves. The wise person notices this, and takes it into account. We should, too. That way we can always get back to the authentic self, and save ourselves.