The Lost Tribes or the Tribe of the Lost

I heard a bad joke many years ago while living in Berkeley:  There was a group of people who wandered about in a perpetual state of lostness.  They came to be know as the Fukarwe because they were always exclaiming, 'W'ere the fuck are we?'

I've always wanted to walk up to some unsuspecting student on Red Square (the central plaza/hang-out/migration space on the Seattle campus), her ears plugged with disembodied music or animatedly on her cell phone with some other dis-em-body.  I'd walk up and gently get her attention.  Then I'd ask her to stop, close her eyes... and tell me where she is.

If I were actually able to orchestrate such an implausible event, what might her response be.  She would probably describe where she thinks she is based on what her vision told her prior to closing her eyes, or her memory of where she was going, maybe her memory of what she noticed when she last almost bumped into someone or stumbled a bit on the uneven ground.

Try it yourself.  Especially outside.  Stop mid-stride someplace, close your eyes.  Use all your other senses, just standing there, to know where you are.

You are where the sounds are...
You are where the smells are...
You are where the feelings against your skin are....
You are where the air tastes like....

We tell ourselves where are all the time.  It's generally some kind of internal monologue describing to ourselves where we are--and more and more of us seem to require some kind continuous soundtrack or ever changing theme song.  Generally, I think, we do not use all our senses to let us know where we are.  We don't really know where we bodily are.  We let our minds interpret for us where we are, in the context of things we're mostly not even aware of.  We are in this place relative to where we were before (the past), where we need to get to (the future), what we're attempting to do (or not do), what our emotions are--not where our animal bodies relay to us.

We don't know where we are most of the time.

Try it again, but this time in a pleasant, comfortable, safe, outdoor space.  Notice what happens inside your mind.  See if you can be where your senses tell you you are.  Try with your eyes closed.  We rely so much on our sight, which is more closely tied to our unquestioned cultural vision, than our other senses tend to be.