This is a post I started writing ten months ago. It was after a more than two-week road trip across parts of South Africa and Southern Namibia I had (mostly) never seen.
Rural roads, both tar and gravel, were traversed. I was reminded, once again, of what a beautiful, sprawling country we live in. Unexpectedly, many of the tar roads were undergoing extensive upgrades, even in provinces where I hadn’t expected to see such investment. But that’s a story about infrastructure and economics for another day. (At some point, I’d like to write an ode to regional road upgrades in the Western Cape. It really is a marvellous thing.)
What stayed with me most from that trip were two nights during which we got lost on remote farms — one in South Africa, one in Namibia.
Can you believe it? Two different farms, in two different countries, both times after 19:00 in the depth of winter. There was no cell reception, though Google’s GPS pointed in some general direction. (Side note: While Google Maps is brilliant in cities, it quickly reveals its limitations in the backroads of rural Africa.)
The first night, it was after 23:00, with only the thinnest sliver of moon offering light. The second night, a nearly full moon hung above us, yet it barely helped us find our way. The darkness was thick and disorientating.
In both cases, I realised almost immediately that panic would be useless. All we could do was stay calm, lean into curiosity, and see what waited beyond the next bend. On the second night, we meticulously retraced our steps, reflecting carefully on where we’d gone wrong.
And that quiet, necessary act of reflection felt familiar — not just for getting lost on roads, but for those other, more internal moments of disorientation life throws our way.
Later, reading about how ancient Polynesian navigators crossed thousands of kilometers of open ocean without maps or compasses, it struck me how they coped with uncertainty. They relied on an internalised sense of direction, cross-referencing the stars, the feel of the swells, even the flight of birds and stories that had been passed along orally. They made peace with not knowing their exact position at every moment. Instead, they relied on patterns and an internal trust in their capacity to adjust.
Modern psychology backs up this type of approach to navigation in lost moments. Studies suggest that people who meet uncertainty with curiosity — rather than fear — navigate difficult, ambiguous situations more successfully. Neuroscientist Tali Sharot’s work on optimism bias highlights how our expectations shape outcomes, not because (blind) hope magically fixes things, but because a curious, open state of mind changes how we respond to challenges.
The lesson? Whether it’s a farm road on a winter night or a metaphorical dark stretch of life, the choice remains the same: fear or curiosity. And while the terrain may be unfamiliar, what matters is not always how quickly you find your way back, but how willing you are to reflect, adapt, and stay curious about what lies ahead. You’ve got this. Even though you may (mostly) think you don’t.
Photo credit: Anja Smith, photo taken of the Southern Namibia desert, just before getting lost int the dark.
