In the last chapter we argued that wayfinding provided a different and almost counter-intuitive take on what it means to act strategically. The underlying spirit of wayfinding is a sense of the positivity of incompleteness: one is under way, and in being under way the ends of one's actions emerge as one goes along. We only know as we go. Contrary to the navigational mindset, this openness and absence is not something to lament or correct; indeed, it is not a limitation at all, but a part-expression of our natural condition of dwelling that has steadily been hidden from us as we have become more and more technologically advanced. As the examples of Graeme Obree and Google show, the existence of an as yet indefinable space (something that is yet to be ordered technologically) constitutes a realm of potentiality that allows wayfinders to establish an authentic imprint on unfolding situations and, in so doing, to unexpectedly effect a dramatic change in the course of events through their ingenuity and local coping actions.

In this chapter, we return to our initial observation that somehow, paradoxically, it is these locally initiated spontaneous responses, the ad hoc ‘making dos’, that often, surprisingly, generate longer-term sustainable outcomes than more deliberate and direct forms of intervention.