You trust your navigation app more than most people in your life. It says “11 minutes”, so you believe “11 minutes”. Then reality, traffic and one mysterious closed street transform that into 27 minutes and a minor existential crisis. The app was not trying to hurt you. It was simply built on a model that forgot how messy the world really is.
The illusion of the perfect map
Maps are comforting.
They suggest that the world is tidy, predictable and two‑dimensional.
In reality, every map is a model – a compressed version of the world that leaves out almost everything:
- the unexpected roadworks,
- the driver who decides to reinvent the traffic code,
- the storm that turns a motorway into a swimming pool.
Your GPS lives in a simplified world of averages and assumptions.
Physics operates in the full chaos of real roads, real cars and real weather.
When models forget about friction
Most models assume ideal conditions:
no extra friction, no random delays, no humans doing creative nonsense.
Physics textbooks often start with things like:
“Assume no air resistance.”
“Assume a frictionless plane.”
That is fine for teaching the basics.
It is less fine when your navigation app mentally deletes half of reality
to give you a clean arrival time.
In a world full of friction — literal and metaphorical —
any model that ignores it will lie to you in the nicest possible way.
Your personal life as a broken GPS
We do the same thing in our heads:
- “This project will take three evenings.”
- “This habit will be easy to keep.”
- “This conversation will be quick.”
We build mental maps with perfect roads, no accidents, endless energy and zero interruptions.
Then we crash into real‑world physics: fatigue, other people, missing information, and limited time.
The plan was not evil.
It was just a bad GPS.
Felix’s rule for better maps
Felix would suggest a simple, unromantic rule:
Every plan is a hypothesis about a messy system.
Treat it like an experiment, not a prophecy.
Before you trust a map – digital or mental – ask:
- What did this map ignore?
- Where did it assume everything goes right?
- What happens if one road (or one day) collapses?
Physics will happily remind you that forces, friction and delays do not read your calendar.
The small relief
When you understand that models lie by omission, not by malice,
you can stop taking every failed plan as a personal verdict.
Sometimes the GPS was just wrong.
Sometimes the map in your head forgot that traffic exists.
The universe is not plotting against you.
It is just busy being complicated.
Felix Schröder
attention Biology Chaos Chemistry Coffee Cognitive bias Coincidences Complex systems consciousness Conservation of energy Energy Everyday life Felix Schröder Friction Humour ideas life love mental-health Michael Mentes Mind & Psychology mindfulness Models of reality Navigation Objectivity Patterns Perception philosophy Physics Planning Probability Productivity Psychology reflection science Self-compassion Self-worth Signals Stress Systems thinking technology Time Work and heat Workplaces writing
Leave a Reply