Compasses

When we are born, each of us is gifted with a compass. They are all the same, all equal to each other, and they have been since man's beginnings. Each person carries their compass every single day of their lives. When we die, our compass does not become an inheritable heirloom, but rather it is buried with us.

There have been debates as old as the hills as to whether our compass is originally set to point true north, or whether it is set to point the opposite direction, or whether the way the arrow points is arbitrary. Whatever the answer, it seems to be the case that by the time we've put a decade or two between us and our birth, our compasses do not all point in the same direction. Most of us believe we are headed north, with varying degrees of truth to our navigating. However, we can quickly get ourselves spun around after having a head-on collision with someone else northern bound.

Not very many people can actually point in the general direction of north anymore, let alone the elusive true north. We've all been tinkering with our compasses, adjusting the magnetization so that they point where we think north is, where we have been led to believe north is. Sometimes we let our compasses be adjusted by the people who speak and walk so confidently in their knowledge of north. The whole world is walking each point of 360 degrees, and every single degree and the space in between is somebody's north. No wonder we're all crashing into each other. Everybody's lost, and sometimes its the ones that are the most lost that speak the loudest, that point to most persuasively in a certain direction.

By adulthood most people have stuffed their compass in an inner pocket somewhere and only pull it out when they feel they need to justify their chartered course. Of course, what solid proof can their be for one's navigational accuracy without a reliable compass.

If only we had a compass mechanic and an infallible navigator rolled into one. Someone to remind us where true north is. Someone we could have fix our compasses so they point that way consistently. If only the world had someone like that.