“A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” — Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity

“A map is the greatest of all epic poems. Its lines and colors show the realization of great dreams.” – Gilbert Grosvenor

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day. I’d asked him when was the last time someone had pulled up asking for directions? It just doesn’t happen now—there’s a phone app for that. That same app takes us to parties and work appointments and the Grand Canyon. Maps are relegated to the wall or the imagination. GPS rules the road now.

Grosvenor, the founder of National Geographic, had it right when he compared a map to poetry. It stirs the imagination similarly. When you look at a great map of a place, how can you not be stirred to explore that place? Maps whisper to me like Sean O’Connell beckoned to Walter Mitty: Go!

The name of this blog is Alexander’s map for a reason, it’s based on William Alexander’s pamphlet Encouragement to Colonies and my own wanderings around the northeast corner of North America. I saw a replica of the map Alexander commissioned in a conference room in Newfoundland and it sparked my imagination, which is exactly why he had it commissioned in the first place. I just came into the picture a bit later than he’d planned. That one map completely changed the person who viewed it that day.

If maps are no longer needed for everyday use, they still have a place in our lives. Maps give us the big picture, while a GPS just tells you where to go. We must always reference the big picture when determining where we want to go in our lives, while remembering always that the map is not the territory. The world is more complicated than that.

What sparks our imagination? Where do we want to go in our lives, and what tools are we using to get there? The answers to these questions are more important than we might believe.