Pointing out the places I have been to (like some backpacker who sews flags onto his backpack) is not what I intend to do here (besides that, it would not be not too impressive). It’s just that there’s a lot of places I haven’t visited, therefore my picture of them is obviously externally influenced. I’ve never heard the language spoken there, seen the landscape, smelled the food. Still I have a subjectively clear image of how those things would be if I was there. In many ways, that image is false, and I know it.
But, really, does it still matter what we have seen, touched, smelled? Or is it enough to know something is there, in order to somehow be aware of it, to make it real. (Like…let’s say: Swine flu.)
Maps are one of the things that highly influence the way we imagine the world to be. And they are real in many ways, but leave the wrong impression in others.
What’s your map of the world?
What’s in it’s center? What’s on the edge? Are you the type of person who knows exactly their local environment or is your map a set of national islands?
Go for it, take a piece of paper, draw it! Those maps you know from National Geographic or google are as true or false as yours will be. Forget those weather maps, those political maps, forget your town’s bus-plan. What’s a weather map worth, if everyone deals with the weather differently? What’s the reality of a political map, if some of us live in transnational realities?
Here’s a few attempts to develop a picture of the world as I know it. I refrained from commenting them.
