Where Are We Centered?

I was listening to NPR (OPB-Oregon Public Broadcasting) the other day, no shocker there since I usually listen to NPR whenever I’m in the car and in the mornings when I’m getting ready for work. The host was interviewing an author about his new book on maps. One of the points the author made was that over the centuries maps have been centered relative to what the maker or user felt was most important. So it might be Rhodes which was the center of trade a really long time ago, or Jerusalem for obvious reasons.


So this gets me to thinking. It’s no wonder so many people act like they’re the center of the universe, they’ve been using their GPS! As soon as they pull up the GPS what does it show you? Where you are, and where are you? In the center.

I think we need to come up with a new center. But what should we center on? Not Hollywood, not New York, or London, or Tokyo, or Hong Kong or any other of the world capitals or centers of business and money. We need a center that focuses us on a wider view, one that focuses us on something apart, but something we want to care about. So we need an app! (I can’t believe I’m saying that.) We need an app that allows us to center our GPS on something like the neighborhood school, the community garden, animal shelter, or food bank. We’ll call it TrueCenter.