Google Maps

An unknown author once said that "you'll learn more about a road by traveling it than by consulting all the maps in the world". With the emergence of digital technology, this quote's accuracy is slowly disintegrating. Google Maps, using satellite images, panoramic views from street level, and complex road maps complete with traffic updates and labeled businesses is freely available via the internet. Google Maps offers such a wide array of capabilities, that one almost feels as if they were being offered a seat at a godlike throne, with the ability to be everywhere all at once. The truth is that there is great disparity between the simulation of Google Maps' view and the perspective of omnipotent deities. While Google Maps allows one the freedom to see nearly anywhere in the world, its pictures are like glancing at a starlit sky and seeing the stars as they were years ago. However, unlike stars, there is no way to calculate how old Google Maps views actually are. What Google Maps does, is ultimately allow us the freedom to see a patchwork world of cities and streets at certain points in time mismatched together to form a warped jigsaw puzzle of a planet, which forces us to confront our own inability to grasp reality as a coherent whole.