zooming

Maps are deceiving.

Kansas isn't pink and you can't see a huge black line when you cross into another state. The ability to cover Texas with your thumb doesn't tell you how big it is. There are people in there. There are roads and fields and mountains. There is garbage, in all sense of the word, when you zoom in. But maps don't tell you that. They look clean and tidy with their over-simplified rainbow colors.

It's an amazing thing to drive across country. You see the state signs, the weird billboards and the wide open fields. You get to meet the people that inhabit that green, tan, or orange state...and then you start to feel how big your country is, and how small you are.

I've been thinking a lot about how to broaden my world and have a better understanding of my place in it. I think zooming in is part of it.