Neecha's Blog

A while back, I had a visitor from Thailand. As I drove us from place to place, he would sit shotgun and ask me what freeway we were on and where we were going. He started remembering freeways and landmarks in no time.

Two weeks into his trip, we were on our way to a new destination and he told me I was going the wrong way. He told me I should take 101 to Pacifica, instead of 280. I felt like saying, “Look buddy, I was born and raised here. I have been driving these freeways for nearly 15 years. I know where I am going.”

One week later, I was driving my guests back from Independence Day fireworks at Fisherman’s Wharf. There was a lot of traffic, so I turned away from the main roads and started navigating through side streets. Fifteen years ago, I was familiar enough with these streets to find the quickest way out with my eyes closed. But when my visitors asked, “I thought you said you grew up around here. Are you lost?” I had to admit that I was, in fact, lost. As if to further prove that I wasn’t as good with my city’s streets as I thought I was, my friend from out of town, who stuck to main streets that were clogged with traffic, got to our destination ten minutes before I did.

It made me think back to my attitude towards my guest who suggested I take a different highway. I was so confident that I was an expert on the territory and that I would always know my way better than a tourist. Sure, I did know the right freeway in that particular instance. But could an expert actually be wrong when an amateur is right? I’ve been a tourist who had more up to date information than a native. And I’ve been the native who mixed up streets when a tourist got it right. There were many reasons for why the newbie knew better in those instances:

1. The location, businesses, and roads in that area changed significantly since the expert was last there;

2. The native grew up in the area, but didn’t necessarily have information on what the tourist wanted to see;

3. The amateur did more recent research, while the expert is going on memory or outdated information;

And so on. There are so many ways for an amateur to be right and for the expert to be wrong. It’s all uncertain because so many factors are always changing. Many of the stores I remembered frequenting in my middle school and high school years have changed, some business hours or perks I remembered also changed. Information on a particular topic can get updated, leaving the expert only an expert on outdated information.

The reason I got lost on familiar roads is simply because I forgot. I forgot which roads led to dead ends and which streets were the best to cut through traffic. Once I made the mistakes it all seemed familiar again, but I needed to review the information to recall that chapter of my life.

We tend to think that experts will know better, and amateurs can’t be trusted. But an expert can be wrong just as an amateur or newbie can. A native can get lost just like a tourist can. More experience doesn’t necessarily guarantee anything, because the experience only relates to old information, to something that happened in the past. Most importantly, everything is constantly changing. So, should we really trust experts?