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Last October some families set their vehicle's GPS (global positioning system) and made a pilgrimage to farm markets across this nation.
These markets are a place where pumpkin and gourd patches beckon children's delight, just as fresh cider and donuts entice their parents.
At many markets, a corn maze is waiting.
Over the years, corn mazes have become larger and more complex in their design, challenging the resolve of any willing participant. Some of the more elaborate mazes are equipped with tall observation towers that help staff members find and rescue stranded families who leave their GPS in the car.
That's just what happens to people who have become too reliant on modern technology. Without it, they contract what I call "cybermaze disorientation."
Around the year 1900, the maze became popular with scientists who studied rats to assess navigation skills.
A high-tech rat maze today can cost upward of $60,000 and is equipped with special sensors capable of documenting the rat's decision-making and using cameras to record their every move.
I personally think most ambiguous public maze in our nation comes the first Tuesday of November, when voters go to the polls after enduring campaign propaganda and political antics by candidates who create a diabolical maze of disinformation.
The idea for a deceptive maze has been around for a long time.
Even the Egyptians used a maze in their great pyramids to hide their beloved Pharaoh's burial chamber.
But it was Moses, the Israelites and their epic wandering for 40 years in the desert, after leaving bondage in Egypt, that possibly created the most unique maze in the history of the world.
The definition of a maze tells us that it has a definite starting point (Egypt) and a definite stopping point (the Promised Land). In fact, Moses sent out 12 scouts from the Israelite nation to bring back information about the country and its people so they knew exactly where the land was.
In current times, politicians are becoming skilled at creating their own ideological mazes with confusing statements, double-speak, bewilderment and hypocrisy.
Back to the rats.
Pssst … Come a little closer and I'll tell you what I think happened to some of those studies. Now don't quote me on this, but I think political operatives dressed as plumbers in the 1970s broke into one of the labs and copied the studies to see which ones might have the most desired effect on voters.
What they determined was that, by using disinformation stimuli, they could move the rats either to the Right or the Left leading up to elections. If a rat was still confused about which way to go, it became radical.
In the case of voters, a political party's use of disinformation and a digital GPS could convince voters to believe in their candidates and thus lead them to the promised land!
And then there is the philosophical maze that politicians believe gives them the flexibility to morally determine what is right or wrong, what is reality and what is fantasy, or whichever will best convince voters how to vote (and what to say.)
I've been able to sneak in through a back door to the lab and reassemble the maze into a counter-logical form that goes like this: We begin with proven knowledge cleansed of politics. By sticking to only the facts we can formulate truth. With enough truths, a sense of trust begins to emerge, and finally, the process ends with faith in the system that is anchored within the trust of the people.
How many of my readers have now given up on our current ability to take back all that has been lost to the waring ideologies and lust for power and money?
Indeed, we are so lost in the maze that we're all now in an "Epic Battle of Gridlock."
To win this battle we must break free from the maze that twists, turns and spins so to confine (and direct) our thoughts.
We must re-program ourselves to understand that bipartisanship has a place in our world.
Unless we try, we could forever be imprisoned in the war-torn political maze for years and years.
Anyone care for manna or quail?
Hmmm …
Ralph Dotter Jr. is a lifelong Nittany Valley farmer, hayseed philosopher and barnyard artist whose roots in the same soil go back almost 200 years.