Great find on this quote. Thanks for sharing it!
So are you gonna stop blogging about design and church designing?
One of the first blogs I ever read was kottke.org. What I love about Jason’s writing/vibe is that he’s approaching it as an editor doing a liberal arts blog. In other words, you never quite know what the editor will post on any given day, much less whether it will be within an overarching topic. It’s literally as broad as “liberal arts.” That’s a model that makes sense to how I’m wired and I want to continue exploring it.
Obviously, I’m a designer by trade, so a lot of the content here will naturally tend towards that discipline. But if anyone is expecting every post to be about fonts and design tips and process, this is the wrong place. I have a category for that, but the category is not the blog. (Maybe I should look into RSS feeds for categories, then you can filter based on need.) I’m a Christian, and I made the decision to be more outspoken about that—hopefully in an effort to show that not all followers of Jesus are what you see on TV—so that will continue. If someone only wants overtly Christian content, there are thousands of other blogs that I’m sure you will be more at home reading.
I’m going to continue writing about whatever interests me. If that interests someone else, I think that’s awesome. I hope we can have conversations around that. If not, I’ll continue writing because I feel compelled to do so and I greatly enjoy cultivating a space online and writing.
I wrote this little story as a response to that quote once: a different angle on it though.
Bumblefort, Buzby and thoughts on paradigmatic option paralysis (?)
Bumblefort scratched his fusty moustache (which had been itching chronically since he gave up his pipe) as he thumbed through his alphabetised catelogue. ‘A, B, C…Ah, here we go, Capitalism, Christianity, Colonialism, Communism, Constructionism, Cultural Pluralism….’
After some deliberation, he memorised the reference he had given the last three maps under C, and stepping toward a filing cabinet behind the door, slowly turned the key to open it. He found the maps he was looking for, unfolded them and spread them out on the thick oak table before him. Pulling a slightly cracked, ivory handled magnifying glass from the inner pocket of his velvet blazer, he began to examine them more closely. ‘Hmmm…’ he exhaled under his breath, as he noticed yet another subtle difference between them, that he could later record in his ever-expanding dictionary.
As he was bent over the fraying documents, he heard the front door click shut and some boots walking away down the gravel path. Walking to the window, he observed his nephew leaving the house and opening the latch, shouted sharply toward him, ‘You boy! Where do you think you’re going?’
Buzby Bumblefort sighed and turned around to answer his uncle.
‘I’m going on a journey…to, I don’t know, seek my fortune? Or buy some gloves…whatever takes my fancy’
‘But you don’t have a map!!’ Bumblefort protested, and in his desperation grabbed the maps on the table, ran out the door, and flew down the stairs and across the gravel path. Breathing heavily, he accosted Buzby,
‘Which map have you got?’
‘I borrowed the one from your cabinet marked ‘Modernism’ replied Buzby as he turned to face him
‘What?!’ exclaimed Bumblefort. ‘Didn’t you think about this at all? How far do you think that will get you? You know as well as I do that Modernism has been subsumed by globalisation’
‘Well, Ok’ shrugged Buzby. ‘I’ll take ‘Globalisation’ if you don’t mind me borrowing it.
‘Mmmmm’ Bumblefort scratched his moustache again. ‘That’s all very well, but if you’re taking that one, you may as well take Liberal Industrialism and Post-modernism as well’
‘Why would I need three maps?’ asked Buzby, his brow furrowing at this delay to his journey. ‘Are they of the same territory?’
‘Naturally’ answered Bumblefort. ‘Although they look entirely different, so I couldn’t begin to suggest which one you should follow. This one paints the territory as arable land, the other as practically one big desert.’
‘Fine. I’ll just take them all, see which one best fits the landscape, and throw the others away. I can always make adjustments to it as I go’
Bumblefort snatched the maps out of his nephews hands and shrank back in horror. ‘Throw the others away! Adjustments?! I have devoted my life to cataloguing the maps that have been produced of this place. There are subtle distinctions between them…pros and cons, finely grained details. How could you let just one guide you? You need to stay here with me, until you are able to discern which map is the best.’
Buzby was confused. ‘But uncle, that day may not come. I mean…you’ve never left the house. How CAN you compare the accuracy and usefulness of these maps?’
‘Well, I…I don’t feel it’s necessary to compare them myself’ he replied, getting more and more flustered. ‘I rely on books and maps that tell me about the maps…and I’ve seen the occassional photograph as well.’
Buzby shook his head and began to walk away as Bumblefort muttered to himself…’Subtle distinctions…got to have all the maps to know which is best…need to study the maps a bit longer…’
‘If you need anything from the real world, just let me know’ he shouted back, as the figure of his uncle standing in the gravel got smaller and smaller on the horizon.
You know I was kidding right. You’ve seen my blog, right? I am all up the politics.
About The Author
I'm a graphic designer and sometimes writer living in Anderson, South Carolina. I serve as the Design Director for NewSpring Church. I love Jesus, my wife, Levi's Jeans, good Tex-Mex, and 8oz glass bottle Coca-Cola Classic. On good days I love them roughly in that order. Email me.
The Map Is Not The Territory
Thu 09/25/08
Quote, “The map is not the territory is a remark by Alfred Korzybski, encapsulating his view that an abstraction derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself, e.g., the pain from a stone falling on your foot is not the stone; one’s opinion of a politician, favorable or unfavorable, is not that person; a metaphorical representation of a concept is not the concept itself; and so on. A specific abstraction or reaction does not capture all facets of its source.” — Wikipedia