Getting lost (and a call for contributions)

If you’ve ever argued with me – and if you’re reading this, let’s not kid ourselves, you have – you might have noticed that I’ve got a thing for analogies. I like analogies. I find them to be an incredibly useful rhetorical device. Analogies can make things clearer to the person you’re talking to, sure – but they can make things clearer to yourself, as well. You’re gaining two things – an easier way to look at a particular subject, primarily, but just as importantly, the idea that these two things are similar. If that similarity breaks down - if your analogy turns out to be inapt - then that can reveal a great deal about your original subject; likely, things that you had missed, the first time around.

I’m not sure if this is making much sense… let me find an analogy for you.

I cook, in a lot of ways, in the same way I learn a new area. When I’m living somewhere new, I spend a lot of time getting lost. Not simply because I don’t know my way around; I get lost on purpose, as a method of learning. I’ll pick somewhere big and obvious that I want to go – the mall, the Washington Monument – and just go. No directions, no nothing, just hop on my motorcycle and do what feels right. (And when you’re on a Harley, baby, it all feels right.) Pick a time when there’s no traffic, nothing else to do – where you can just drive, take in the roads, get a feel for the lefts and rights, for the way the city streets curve, for where the big roads take you and where they don’t. If you never get there, who cares? As long as you can find your way home again and start over, that’s all you need. Getting lost does two things that getting where you’re going never can, and I don’t know which one is more important. Getting lost on purpose teaches you how to get found, when you’ve gotten lost not on purpose. And getting lost often introduces you to amazing things, things that you would never see if you were just heading from point A to point B.

When I’m cooking something new, I’ll come up with an idea. Most of the time, that idea will be based off of something I’ve eaten before, or at least heard about. I’ll look through my toolbox, and try to figure out if I’ve got what I need to get from here to there. Is the place I’m going big enough to see from where I am? It’s still rare for me that the answer to that question is “yes” – that I can just come up with a recipe in my head for something new. Most of the time, I’ll search Internet for hints. I’ll do a quick Google search, and take a look at a few recipes. Most of the time, all I’m really looking for are the broad strokes – the major directions – because if I follow the directions to the letter, I’m likely to get a perfect, delicious dish.

I’m unlikely to get lost, in other words.

Making dishes wrong is far, far more educational than making them right, in more or less the same way that getting lost is more educational than getting to your destination. (Unless, I suppose, you’re heading to a school, library, museum, or that sort of place.) (And you’re the type of person who gets more benefit out of those things than out of experiential learning.) (And you were going to be so late that if you got lost, you weren’t going to make it on time.) Pointing yourself in a direction and winging it means that sometimes you’ll wind up with food that tastes terrible (or even worse, food that tastes boring) but sometimes you’ll wind up with something that tastes amazing. And when you make the dish again, you’ll be able to correct your errors – much more useful, in the long run, than never having made them at all.

Even more than that, getting lost is exciting. It’s scary, no doubt – especially when you’ve got a half-dozen people coming over for dinner, and you don’t really know if you’ve cooked anything that’s actually worth eating. But at the same time, there’s a tingle that goes through my system every time I figure something out, or every time I think “I bet it would taste even better if I…” It's worth occasionally having mushy cashews.


So I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. This blog is open to anyone and everyone who feels like contributing – and I’ll let you define how you’d like to contribute. I’d love to have people writing guest entries, or even a weekly column, but if you’ve got something else in mind that you think would be fun – get in touch! I’d love to hear from you. In the meantime, I hope you’re enjoying watching me get lost.