True North

Art by Rebecca J. Hartman

By 6:00 a.m. on Monday, the sky was pale with heat and sun. Redwing blackbirds landed on cattails to nibble and stare at walkers in the park.

I had gone at sunrise to thread the trails that border lakes and cornfields, hoping to avoid the worst of the humidity, needing to get my thoughts and direction straight.

I wanted, specifically, to identify some nebulous creeping influence that had taken up residence, and as they say, and was living rent-free in my head. Some mash-up of AI, social media, and haters had overtaken what used to be a very nice mental neighborhood. It was as if some power from Stranger Things had moved in.

Of course, the news cycle contributed to the disquiet, but there was a specific snapping point. I had been innocently reading a post on social media from someone wanting advice on how to jump into WNBA basketball fandom, what team to follow, what players to study. The writer then skewed the request by asking respondents to recommend “any team except the one Caitlin Clark is on.”

Was the writer a real person? AI? An organized effort to sow discord? Who doesn’t know the name of the Fever?

Then came the recommendations for players and teams—dozens, approaching hundreds, of comments, many congratulating the writer for disregarding, shunning, insulting Clark and the Fever. What reservoir of anger had been uncapped? I stopped reading after the first thirty comments or so.

The level of vitriol in commentary has grown consistently, whether the topic centers on politicians, Canadian wildfires, relationships, civic affairs, sports, or entertainment; nothing is immune from incivility and insensitivity. Can we no longer disagree constructively?

The derogatory post about the announcing articulation of sportscaster Tamika Catchings, an American basketball legend, especially stunned me. The social media post-er was new to women’s basketball (no history or expertise needed to sound off) and knew none of Catchings’ history, including her overcoming deficits resulting from her serious hearing impairment. Hey, let’s just follow the current leadership model around here and shoot from the hip with no research, no restraint, and no respect.

There’s something especially threatening about forums for hate, for bullying and grandstanding, in which shots can come from anywhere, even from non-human programmers or groups with only malicious intent. And yet so many of us are hooked into these forums, addicted to these ‘news’ sources, tied up in entertainment or gambling sites so that we can’t extricate ourselves or understand how each of them is changing us.

Even though most of us understand at some basic level that we are to care for one another, the cowardice of anonymity and the laziness of never having to face the people we are denigrating bring a lack of accountability that has made us worse as humans.

On the trail back from my walk, I passed a heart taped to the ground in red painter’s tape, a reminder that I can control the hate I let into my life and the love I let out.

Because it was early enough to see the exact angle of the sun’s rising, I hurried out of the park toward home with the intent of adjusting the birdhouses in my backyard to face true east. It’s good to know true east if you want bluebirds. It’s good to know true north if you want peace.

In a metaphorical sense, “true north” refers to a purpose, principle, or set of values that provides consistent direction.

Whether we can discern it or not, true north verifiably, literally does exist. We’ve put words to a quantifiable scientific phenomenon. And a smartphone can pull a compass off course, create a magnetic deviation so that true north is undetectable.

This morning, I watched through the back window opposite my desk as a hummingbird, two red birds, yellow and purple finches, and a bird I’ve never seen before gathered. I finished this article. I counted the moments that have meant the most to me in the last few days, none of which involved a phone or tablet.

On Thursday, I went to a yoga class I usually don’t attend and saw, with such spontaneous delight, an old friend who reminded me of Maya Angelou’s quote, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I watched a ballgame without checking the comments online. I found a forgotten favorite coffee cup when I went to make my coffee this morning. I have stationed a bouncer in my brain to keep the riff-raff out and to let the balanced, the important, the fortifying in.

Just a final note: Not to be a Pollyanna, but did you know that if you set a tripod toward true north, you can photograph star trails? Now there’s a good use of a phone—to point it north and let the star trails in.