Author: Shuna

Advanced Academic English I, Sophia University

Permission granted for publication in August 2025

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My phone showed one bar, then nothing. I was standing where two dirt roads met in rural Nagano, completely alone except for the sound of wind through rice stalks. The golden rice fields went on for miles toward mountains covered in afternoon mist. I had planned to visit an ancient temple in a remote area, following what I thought was a clever shortcut I had found on my map app. But now I was confused and increasingly worried. The autumn sun was setting faster than I expected, and shadows were growing longer across the empty landscape. At that moment, without a phone connection, I felt something I rarely feel in our hyper-connected world. There is real fear of things I could not control. The silence was overwhelming. Months later, when I read Jack London's To Build a Fire, I realized how similar my modern panic was to his main character's dangerous trust in technology and complete lack of natural wisdom.

London's traveler does not listen to an old man's warnings about traveling alone in extremely cold weather. My pride was quieter but just as dangerous. I had ignored my family's kind suggestion to take the main road. I was confident that my smartphone GPS would guide me through mountain shortcuts. London writes that the man "was without imagination," and I saw myself in this description—not because I could not think, but because I believed the wrong things were important (London 29). Like London's character, I trusted systems more than people and data more than real experience. Both of us had to learn the hard way that nature does not care about our tools.

However, my story ends differently. Unlike London's character, I survived by doing something his character could never do. I admitted I was wrong and asked for help. An old farmer working in his field not only gave me directions but also drove me partway, as he was worried about a foreigner being alone at sunset. London's frozen Yukon shows no such kindness, but maybe that is because his story is less about reality and more about giving a warning. Today, nature remains dangerous, yet it is also surrounded by technology that introduces new risks. Research shows that too much reliance on GPS can "reduce spatial memory and impair environmental learning," especially when people follow digital maps without thinking or asking local people for advice (He, Hegarty, and Chrastil 5). London could not have imagined a world where people would get lost because they followed a map too exactly, but the result is the same: we forget how to adapt.

This experience has changed how I think about human strength. London's main character fails because he cannot adjust, cannot accept his limits, and cannot ask for help. After my experience, I realized that surviving in nature is not about fighting it with tools, but about listening to both the land and those who live with it. The old man in London's story represents more than just caution; he represents wisdom I almost ignored. My family, like him, had tried to guide me, but I chose convenience over real connection.

Looking back on this experience, London's powerful message stays with me daily, not as a simple story about wilderness survival, but as a deeper lesson in staying humble before forces greater than us. Every app I check or route I blindly follow can make me forget that real awareness and true understanding are not digital products we can download. The question moving forward is not whether I will get lost again in some form, but whether I will remember what to do when I inevitably do: ask for help without shame, stay aware of my surroundings, and respect both the land and the people who know it intimately. London's fire died alone in the snow, extinguished by pride and isolation, but the warm flame of human kindness and community connection still burns brightly, even in our age of smartphones and endless digital distractions.

Works Cited

• He, Qiliang, et al. "The Roles of Wayfinding Experience and GPS Use in Spatial Cognition." Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 58, 2018, pp. 1–9, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6024983.

• London, Jack. “To Build a Fire.” Literature and the Environment, 2nd ed., edited by Lorraine Anderson, Scott Slovic, and John P. O’Grady, Pearson, 2013, pp. 26–36.