On the value of a signpost
You asked me about the origin of Sigi's Rule #4. I recall that I told you a related story, but omitted the birth of the notion itself. Forgive me. I was trying to protect you. I realize now there is no protection available. I should have explained earlier the circumstances in which the idea first occurred to me.
I was walking through unfamiliar country when I came to a signpost that was clearly not sitting comfortably in its role along side the fork in the footpath. But trusting it, I followed the direction it indicated. I was a more than gentle ascent, but the beauty of the landscape drew me onwards. I paused occasionally to gaze upon the scenery or stoop to admire the collision of colours among a display of wild flowers. So I cannot say that I soon realised it was leading me entirely the wrong way. Rather that I had been so pre-occupied with being in the landscape that I walked a considerable way, to the summit of a hill. It was only when I reached the summit, and found no obvious way onward, that I became annoyed.
And yet, as I my eyes danced from field to cottage from road to river, tracing the whole valley now arranged below me, the annoyance must have melted away, for I was no longer aware of it. Only the delight at being there. I continued along in a make-shift direction to regain the valley further along in my journey and reflected. Had the sign been obedient to its office, I would have remained on the lower road and never seen the landscape before me. The mistake revealed a truth.
Years later, passing that way again, and now wholly familiar with the route, I noticed the old sign still leaning at its disproportionate angle, but obscured from casual view by a perfectly accurate modern directional system. Visitors could now reach their destination efficiently and without confusion. Yet nobody ever climbed the hill. Nobody saw the valley. The truth of the sign concealed a mistake: navigation had become confused with arrival. I concluded:
A mistake may fail in relation to its object while succeeding in relation to a horizon.
A truth may succeed in relation to its object while failing in relation to a horizon.
I rather value this lesson. Not every wrong turn is an error, and not every correct direction reveals where one is. And I, I have never been entirely certain whether the discomfort of the sign as I originally encountered it, revealed a deeper history. ✒️ Sigi