Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

Remember the 1970 tune Signs by the Five Man Electric Band:

"Sign, Sign, everywhere a sign,
blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind.
Do this, don't do that,
can't you read the sign?"

The song was a rejction of accepted cultural norms like profiling (Long-haired freaky people need not apply) and exclusivness (You got to have a membership card to get inside), while offering a paean of thanksgiving:

I got me a pen and paper and I made up my own little sign
I said thank you Lord, for thinking about me
I'm alive and doing fine

Yep, there are signs everywhere and I honestly think some of them should be disobeyed. But signs do have value, especially on the road. A warning such as "Dangrous Curves" can keep you alive and the "Duck Xing" can keep you from beinb labeled a mass murderer. While we may not always like the signs that block out the scenery or break our minds, and may choose to do 60 MPH in that curve instead of the recommend 50 MPH, it is wise to at least consider the information the signs provide, even if you aren't sure what they portend.

Like one sign I encountered on a back road in Utah: Motorcycles use Extreme Caution.

Not just caution or extra caution, but EXTREME caution. I didn't know what it meant, but I sure as heck slowed down and looked around. I really don't think the folks who post those signs are just trying to mess with drivers and probably had some reason for posting that information in the first place. So I paid attention, and extreme caution was warranted as the turns were very tight and rocks littered the road. And even though I was using extreme caution I was still dragging hard parts avoiding rocks and leaning into the turns.

So signs are important, especially those that require a little thought to interpret. In fact I think the less obvious signs are the most important because they point to not so obvious underlying problems.

Signs like manure on the road. It was dawn and I was heading east into the sun, up into some of the most awesome country on the face of this planet. As the sun rose the shadows cast by the mesas and mountains added a glorious wonder to the morning but also left some blind spots. It was when I saw the manure that the alarm bells went off and I remembered that those less obvious signs are very important.

And I was right, because suddenly one of the "shadows" started moving. It is amazing how the mind can say "That ain't right" even as the feet and hands are braking, downshifting, and preparing for evasive action. Which is good, since the shadow turned out to be a calf just wandering across the road. I was never in any real danger and because I had paid attention to the manure doubling as a sign I was able to swerve and avoid the calf with only a minimal rise on the sphincter scale ...

About a mile down the road there was a posted sign, one of the helpful obvious kind: Open Range. Yeah, thanks but I figured that out.

We don't pay enough attention to the signs all around us, especially the less obvious ones that point to truths we deny even as we act them out. We are so busy posting our own signs that we don't pay attention to all the danger signs in our culture, like lying as an accepted norm to achieve an ends, property before people, and jumping to conclusions with no consideration of facts. These are the signs we need to observe very carefully.

To intentionally disobey a sign is a matter of free choice; to pay no attention to a sign is dangerous.