WEBVTT - Map of Self 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.360 From how stuff works dot com. This is the stuff 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:10.600 of life. Welcome to the Stuff of Life. I'm your host, 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:17.360 Julie Douglas. Here be dragons. We've mapped the mountains of 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:22.840 the Moon, the lava fields of Mars. We map the 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:28.520 trails of migrant whales. We map the farthest stars. We 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:33.200 map the oceans shifting shore. We've mapped the open sky, 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:43.519 the treasure rooms of incatoons, and where the lay lions lie. Ye. 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:48.000 Finding our way in the world is one of the 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:52.200 most fundamental things we humans do. It's survival one oh one. 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:56.400 Using site to guide us. Think of the strong verticals 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.920 and trees, and the horizon line moving our eyes up 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:04.240 cross it to create the most rudimentary of maps. Perhaps 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:07.360 that's why there are so many visual nerve cells dedicated 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:10.679 to the detection of horizontal and vertical planes rather than 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:15.240 diagonal ones. After all, our environment is based on this 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:19.240 x y axis. Human beings are all of us are 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:22.080 trapped in a spatial box. I mean, everything we do 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:27.560 takes place in a space, and wayfinding isn't just about 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.199 physical space around us, that the internal space as well, 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.800 Like the path that neurons take transmitting information to make 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.160 memories and serve up thoughts. It's also in our body's 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:44.920 ability to perceive itself to test our bodies mapping abilities. 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:47.640 Fellow podcaster Holly Fry and I stumbled through a few 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:52.960 vortex tunnels illusions at the Haunted attraction nether World. Here, 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:56.040 darkened hallways have no x Y coordinates to fix your 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:00.400 gaze on, and the halls reverberate in the swirl of booming, 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:06.480 buzzing confusion. Oh my god, swirling stars around me. It's like, 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:11.160 I'm going to see this barrel and oh my god, 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.440 how's it going? Holly good? Those twisty rooms and the 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:20.880 vortex room, they genuinely jack with your equilibrium. Losing the 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.799 ability to pin yourself down in space and time can 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:27.160 be terrifying, and perhaps this is why we can't stand 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.800 to get lost, even for the briefest of moments. An idea. 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:34.080 I took to my house to works coworkers podcaster Jonathan 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:38.280 Strickland and senior editor Alison louder Milk. It's time for 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.000 me to leave. It's time for me to go back 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:42.640 to my hotel, grab my stuff and then go to 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.440 the airport. Couldn't I get a cab to take me 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:47.920 over to Queen's. So I was thinking, well, I've I've 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:54.440 budgeted enough time, I will take the subway. The level 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:57.800 of panic I experienced when I realized maps were no 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.000 good to me here. It didn't give me enough information, right, 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:06.600 I couldn't I couldn't offload that to technology. I was 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.200 now dependent upon my own ability, which I had very 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:18.280 little confidence in. Jonathan is very seldom without global satellite capabilities, 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:21.440 but that day his way finding mission from Manhattan to 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:26.120 Queens wouldn't have benefited from it. Anyhow. For Allison, the 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:31.040 wilds of New York were tamed with recognizable landmarks. So 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:32.960 I'm glad you brought up New York City. I lived 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:36.920 there for my undergrad college experience and then um for 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:40.480 a while after, and I noticed that the easiest way 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:45.640 for me to get around the subway system was by landmarks. 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.880 So say I'm getting out at Columbus Circle. I knew 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:52.520 where the fountain was in the in the circle, and 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:55.280 so I would orient myself towards that, Like, Okay, if 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:57.640 I'm facing the circle, and that means I'm facing north, 0:03:57.680 --> 0:03:59.839 and I've come out at this entrance, and the McDonald's 0:03:59.880 --> 0:04:01.760 is on the west corner, and if I'm want to 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.200 go um cross town, I need to head toward the McDonald's. 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:08.520 And so I had completely populated my landscape of New 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:11.560 York City with all these arbitrary little landmarks to help 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:17.320 me navigate, you know, my life. Then these sorts of 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.919 non GPS moments are far and few between these days. 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:25.640 In fact, thanks to geographic information systems, we can overlay 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:32.600 maps with just about anything, even Happiness doctors Peter Sheridan 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.160 Dodds and Chris stan Forth use big data to make 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.280 the case that across ten languages they surveyed, people use 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:42.080 more positive words than negative ones. They use twenty four 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:46.960 sources like websites, music, lyrics, fiction, and social media to 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.120 build up a database of words, billions and billions of 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:54.400 words from Twitter alone, they collected roughly one hundred billion 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:57.320 of them. And then, in a kind of part B 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:59.920 to this study, Dods and dan Forth created a head 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.880 DNA meter happiness meter, that traces the signals of emotions 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.000 in Twitter communications, and they found out all sorts of 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:11.559 details about when and where we're happiest. So I thought, 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.120 the most interesting thing about this steady, and it's one 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:16.680 that I hadn't really thought about before, is that they 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.240 found that the further people were from home, the happier 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:23.359 they were. What do you guys think about that. It 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:25.960 may not be so much that you're not as happy 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:30.640 at home as you are just familiar with everything. Like 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.520 if I travel to Japan, I'm sure I would be 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:40.320 expressing wonder and awe as I traveled the country, walking 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:42.839 around my yard. I'm not likely to do that unless 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:47.520 something truly extraordinary has happened. Allison brings up a good 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:51.080 point about the source of this study, social media, and 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:55.760 whether it's a reliable barometer. I do wonder, though, in 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:59.240 that aggregate, how much they are taking into account the 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.240 fact that we try to present like our best selves 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.360 book or our worst selves as the case maybe um, 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:07.440 depending upon what you're feeling. So I wonder if the 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:13.040 studies take that into account. Well. Also, there's this kind 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:17.480 of echo chamber of what you're saying spiraled out among 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.440 your social groups, So is that really an accurate sense 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:22.960 of what that social group feels. Are they just reacting 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:27.760 as we have this discussion right now, my social media 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:32.520 feeds are absolutely consumed with the political process of the 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.760 United States, and I see exactly what you're saying, Julie, 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:39.840 I see this kind of echo chamber resonance chamber thing 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:43.080 going on to a point where my perception of what 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:47.640 is going to happen is largely skewed by that, so 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:51.839 that when reality sets in a day later after, say, 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:56.160 the primaries have you know, super Tuesday has passed, are 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:59.080 very different from what I would have expected based upon 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:03.520 my experience, simply because that echo chamber has has reinforced 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:07.840 this idea, and I've created my own kind of, if 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:11.160 you will, map of where things are going that's not 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:15.320 at all based upon any reliable data, but rather on 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.320 this this echoing uh sentiment that I'm hearing that has 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:24.560 shaped my perception of what will be. Social media is 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.560 a map of storytelling, the details of what we choose 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:31.400 to disclose and how that shapes the overarching narrative of 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:35.440 our autobiography, the story of our lives charted out in 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:41.760 our imaginations. So what would Jonathan and Allison's autobiographical map 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:46.160 look like? It literally would look like England. I'm probably 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:50.560 a romanticized, perhaps even fantastical version of England. Price of 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.240 Middle Earth worked into their I do have a Lord 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:55.240 of the Rings tattoo on one arm, So I mean, 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:57.920 I can't get that far away from it. But that 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.640 to me, like when I think about my past, there's 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:04.000 certain very important events happened to me while I was 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:05.920 in England. I've only been in England a few times, 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.040 but all the times I've been have been pivotal moments. 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.320 My honeymoon was in England, for example. I spent a 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.280 week with very close friends in England where we all 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:20.080 learned interesting things about one another and got hopelessly lost. 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:25.600 All of these moments just kind of pulled back. And 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.480 even though I've spent more, way more time out of 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:30.840 England than in it, I feel like I could cram 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.920 pretty much everywhere else I've been into this fictional map. 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.600 I think that mine would like a little bit like Phillery. 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:43.600 And I don't know if you guys have read the 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:47.000 Musician's trilogy, which is wonderful. Just finished up the last 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:49.960 one and I'm sad love grossmend right more. Please. My 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:52.560 map is hand painted, and it's hand lettered, and it's 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:57.240 probably a little bit off scale. And the house where 0:08:57.240 --> 0:08:59.600 I grew up in is kind of Castle Lake, and 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:02.960 they're various figures who are important in my life back 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:05.480 then and still are today, and they're kind of gathered 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.120 around the castle, and then we go out into the wilds. 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.880 You know, here's New York City, a tiny dot that 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:15.320 was pretty pivotal in my growing up years, my twenties. Uh, 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:17.200 and here's Atlanta. I mean, actually, I think it would 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.880 be a map of the east, the East coast, but 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:21.880 it would be lovely. It would be a lovely map 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:23.679 of the East Coast of the United States, and one 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:25.960 that really has no relevance for anyone else. I think 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.080 Alison's map features Philary and this place is similar to 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.000 mine in that Narnia is a fictional place and it 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:39.600 figures as a backdrop in my life. Map The Lion, 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:41.720 the Which and the Wardrobe was one of the first 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:46.160 places my mind could reliably retreat to a fantasy land 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:48.800 that explored what it was like to be a child 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.720 shaped by the forces around her. And in that respect, 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.480 each of us has a bit of the fictional world 0:09:55.720 --> 0:10:02.160 woven into our autobiography. Yeah. Well, if I had to 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.680 make an autobiographical map of my life, in terms of 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:08.160 what it would look like, I would think back to 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:14.640 earlier medieval maps, where fast expanses of the known world 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:19.520 hadn't been explored or discovered yet, so you'd have these 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:24.920 old maps with vast expanses of empty land and empty 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:29.360 ocean where it was blank, nothing was really there um 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:31.960 And usually those parts of the maps are where you 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:35.400 would find all of these monsters. Um. They kind of 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:39.040 represented the unknown, so they were placed in the unknown 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:44.080 portions of maps. That's Toronto based artists Bailey Henderson. She 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:47.920 brings mythological secreatures from medieval and Renaissance maps to life 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:53.120 in her ongoing sculpture series Monstrom Marines. In her research, 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.080 Bailey was struck by one particular map, the Carter Marina, 0:10:56.160 --> 0:11:01.160 drawn by Alls Magnus. In it features a bestiary of 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.760 marine animals, the kinds that sailors would trade stories about, 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:08.120 beasts said to tear a ship asunder and plunge it 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:19.080 into the briny depths. One such beast is Zivious. This 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.959 bronze sculpture depicts a bird faced worka with a dorsal 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:25.960 thing that can slice boats in half. And it turns 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:29.040 out that this kind of land and sea animal mashup 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.800 is common and the Renaissance it was a common belief 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.960 that all of the animals presented on land had their 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:40.880 counterpart in the sea. So on a lot of early 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:44.200 maps and text you would see creatures like a sea pig, 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:48.360 or a sea dog, sea lion, a seahorse. They are 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:53.280 just completely ridiculous creatures that obviously didn't ever exist. But 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:58.880 it's quite an amazing, uh, the imagination that early artists 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.360 ad when they were depicting these creatures. Here with these 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:07.960 maps we see Bailey's imagination working spatially, willing these two 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:12.360 D beasts into a three D sculptural existence, which is 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:14.760 in stark opposition of what we do in real life. 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:18.840 In real life, we survey our three D surroundings an 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:22.400 attempt to freeze them into a tableau, compressing the details 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.000 to what we wanted to look like. And in this 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.640 way there's an interplay between one is real and what 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:34.840 is fiction. To me, all maps are fictional. It's important 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:37.640 to when you look at a map to kind of 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.640 ask yourself the question, what has he or she decided 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:44.960 to leave out? What rhetorical messages being given, even the 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:47.400 ones that people think are you know, this is the 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:54.400 most scientifically accurate piece of cartography. I'm John Hessler. I'm 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:59.000 a specialist in modern cartography and geographic information sciences Here 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:05.800 at the Library of Congress, Geographic Information System g i 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.480 S is changing the way we take in details from 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:13.800 the world. It's like mapping on steroids, allowing us to question, analyze, 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:17.400 and interpret data to understand all sorts of relationships, patterns, 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.800 and even trends. So g i S and and modern 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.800 mapping are really an attempt to kind of abstract from 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:28.360 this huge, complex, multidimensional um mess that is the world 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:33.240 um and to visualize what's actually happening. An example here 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:38.120 is crisis mapping in after a devastating earthquake hit Nepal, 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.120 it took only forty eight hours for volunteers to map 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:45.480 incredibly useful data, like areas that had passable roads to 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.600 get supplies to and from, and areas that had given 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:52.520 way to landslides. This is a kind of humanitarian ground 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:58.000 swell of technology. My interest in cartography has always been, 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:00.360 at least in modern cartography, is how do we use 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.120 this data to help people. My involvement with crisis mappers 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.920 UM and and and the humanitarian mapping world is all 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:11.400 about that, to kind of plan for things that are unexpected, 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:15.760 things that are happening and changing rapidly. Almost everything that 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.720 we humans do is never an equilibrium. It's always changing. 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.640 A city is a thing that used to be thought 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.960 of this kind of the stable UM place, but it's not. 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:30.000 It's the transportation is moving, there's energy going in and out, 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:32.760 there's all kinds of things happening. UM. How do we 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:38.800 plan that to make people's lives better. That's not to 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.920 say this kind of technology is perfect. While on the 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:45.280 one hand, there's this this really beautiful side of you know, 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:48.800 what can we do to UM use this technology in 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:51.920 order to improve people's lives, to plan better, to figure 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.400 out how to deliver fresh water to people better, to 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:58.840 um plan all of those kind of resources and agricultural 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:01.480 land use and all of that stuff. There's also that 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:03.920 that negative side that the more of this data that 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.000 gets out there, of course, the more information that that 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.600 other people have about us UM government agencies and and 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:14.280 that kind of thing marketers UM. So there's the there's 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.960 the double edged sword there in this sense. G I 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.680 S mapping is Pandora's box. Will never be able to 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:24.120 stuff it back in and close the latch, and we 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:26.160 probably wouldn't want to do that even if we could. 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:28.640 After all, it's changed the way that we move through 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:32.000 the world. People use it to pick hotel rooms. They 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:33.880 go and they look at what the orientation of the 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:36.640 hotel is, and they, you know, decide what room in 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:38.800 a hotel they might want to stay in based on 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:41.720 the view that they can see on Google Earth. UM. 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:45.680 And so I think it's taken the difficulty of wayfinding 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:49.520 out um. In other words, the space of wayfinding, the 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:53.160 anxiety of finding your way has has kind of disappeared. 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.280 Where we're all on our phones, um, looking for the 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.320 Starbucks that's a block away with our little GPS and 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:02.200 our smartphone owns or or anything like that. We we 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:08.000 no longer have to wander about looking for anything. And 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:12.400 the spatial aspect of mapping has exploded, spiraling out and 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:17.600 influencing every sector of technology, even game design. Take Minecraft, 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:20.480 for example, a game that looks deceptively simple with its 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:24.200 basic survival premise and block architecture to build shelters with. 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:27.800 But it turns out that Minecraft is really sophisticated and 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.960 it requires a lot of spatial and problem solving skills. 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:36.480 It's taking advantage of a certain cognitive way we perceive spaces. Um. 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:38.960 One thing, when you build a Minecraft space you're kind 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.200 of moving through it. And I think that's an interesting, 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:45.280 uh cognitive way to look at at at mapping. Mapping 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:47.880 usually is a space that someone is moving through, that 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:51.200 people are moving through, but in Minecraft, um it's especially 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:53.840 important that that people can move through the space that 0:16:53.880 --> 0:17:00.400 you're building. Disability to throw off the shackles of space 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:05.000 may help to explain the fanaticism of Minecraft players. And 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:09.399 I think it really does compartmentalize a certain um, a 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:13.040 certain fantasy we have about breaking out of what is 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:17.960 our normal spatial box. Um. Humans have always wanted to 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:21.639 kind of like throw off space, throw off this this 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:25.040 this geometric thing that kind of keeps us down and 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.600 keeps us in place. That one thing that humans can't 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:29.480 do is flyes. And I think these things kind of 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:35.480 play on that. John's life is in maps, and this 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.840 has changed the way that he sees the world. Now 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:40.800 we can do real time mapping, Now we can do 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.840 stuff that's updating itself, you know immediately, and and and 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:48.639 looking at that, and the way that changed my worldview 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.240 is is that I now look at the world as 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:55.680 never in equilibrium, that there's never anything that's not changing. 0:17:56.080 --> 0:18:01.720 Everything is in motion, everything is happening um. Everything is interactive, 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:10.160 everything is connected. Maps are contours of the human experience, 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:13.840 laid out on an emotional grid, And in those contours 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:17.640 we consider location, distance, history, people, and whether we want 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.640 to go there or have been there, whether we once 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.800 stood on a mountaintop picking out the Big Dipper from 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:27.359 a wreath of brilliant stars hanging overhead, or whether we 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:30.560 dreamed it or flew over it on Google Earth, moving 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:34.560 through space and time in our minds. Think of all 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:38.080 the ephemeral maps you leave behind each day, the physical 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.840 and digital footprints marking your paths, and the stories these 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:45.240 routes tell about where you are in your life and 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:48.719 who you are in your life, the outward evidence of 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:55.760 your inner wayfinding. We've mapped the bloody universe and pinned 0:18:55.760 --> 0:19:02.520 it in a net, but as for dots of humans, 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:24.240 we've made no progress. Yes, The Stuff of Life is 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:27.440 written and co produced by me Julie Douglas. Original music 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.439 and sound design is by co producer Noel Brown. This 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.600 episode also featured tracks from the album Mechanical Advantage by 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.800 The Cubists. Editorial oversight is provided by Head of production 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:43.600 Jerry Rowland. Excerpts of hireby Dragons is by Felix Dennis. 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:47.480 We'd like to thank John Hessler for revealing the illuminating 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:50.080 ways in which we map the world. You can find 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:53.840 out more about John's work at Warping History dot blogspot 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.200 dot com. Thank you to Bailey Henderson for discussing your 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.840 research into medieval and Renaissance maps. Check at her sculpture 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:05.359 series Monstro Marines at Bailey Henderson dot com. And thank 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:09.320 you to Alison Ladermilk and Jonathan Strickland for sharing your travels, 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:13.560 real and imagined. If you like what we do here 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.280 at the Stuff of Life, visit us on Facebook and Twitter. 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:19.119 In the meantime, email us a drawing or a description 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.800 of your autobiographical map at the Stuff of Life at 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:41.720 Housta works dot com.