The Mapmaker

The map hung on the wall of the village hall for as long as anyone could remember. It was a large map, hand-drawn on yellowing paper, its corners curled with age. The roads wandered across it like uncertain thoughts. Rivers bent where no river bent. Distances were optimistic in one direction and pessimistic in another. Entire fields appeared where there were now houses, while several houses appeared not at all. Everyone knew it was wrong. Visitors would stand before it and laugh. “That road isn't there.” “The bridge is in the wrong place.” “The church is far too large.” The mapmaker who had drawn it was long dead, though his errors remained remarkably alive.

One wet afternoon, I found myself standing before the map with a farmer, a retired schoolteacher, and a man who repaired bicycles. The farmer pointed to a line crossing a stream. “There never was a bridge there.” The schoolteacher disagreed. “There was. My grandfather spoke of it.” The bicycle repairman shook his head. “It was not a bridge. It was a ford.” Within minutes, nobody was looking at the map anymore. They were talking about the village. The stream became a story. The story uncovered another story. The missing bridge led to a flood, the flood to a wedding, the wedding to a disagreement between two brothers that apparently continued to influence local politics many decades later.

The map had failed completely. Yet somehow it had succeeded. Years later, the old map was removed. In its place appeared a new one, produced with the latest technology. Every road was precisely located. Every boundary was exact. Distances could be measured to the metre. Nothing was misplaced, exaggerated, omitted, or imagined. The map was true.

Nobody gathered around it. People glanced at it and moved on. There were no arguments. No stories. No discoveries. No old memories called unexpectedly into the present. The map answered every question before anyone had the chance to ask one. One day I stood before the new map and found myself missing the old one. This seemed irrational. After all, the old map was wrong. The new map was correct. What more could one ask of a map?

Yet something had vanished. The old map forced people into conversation with the place. The new map replaced that conversation with information. The old map made visible the difference between what was shown and what was known. The new map concealed that difference beneath its accuracy. It was then that I began thinking about a distinction that has occupied me ever since.

There are mistakes that reveal truths. And there are truths that conceal mistakes.

The old map was mistaken about roads, rivers, and distances. Yet through those mistakes it revealed something true about belonging. Its inaccuracies invited participation. One did not merely consult it. One entered into a relationship with it. The new map was true about roads, rivers, and distances. Yet it concealed a mistake. It assumed that understanding a place consists in locating it correctly. But a place is not exhausted by its coordinates. A village cannot be reduced to the geometry of its streets any more than a friendship can be reduced to an exchange of addresses. The old map was wrong about where things were. The new map was wrong about what a place is.

At first sight this appears paradoxical. We assume truth and error are opposites. Yet experience suggests otherwise. Sometimes an error misses its object and reveals a horizon. Sometimes a truth captures its object and hides the horizon entirely. The distinction is important. For when we discover a mistake, we should not ask only what it gets wrong. We should ask what becomes visible through it. And when we discover a truth, we should not ask only whether it is correct. We should ask what disappears in its light.

The old map no longer hangs in the village hall. I do not know what became of it. Perhaps it was discarded. Perhaps it lies forgotten in an attic somewhere. But I suspect the old mapmaker understood something that his successors did not. He knew that a map should not merely tell us where we are. It should help us discover what it means to have been there.

Later that evening, I wrote the following in my notebook:

Rule #4 Beware the truth that ends a conversation. Attend carefully to the mistake that begins one.

✒️ Sigi

I should explain. Over the years, various letters of the Italian alphabet have drawn my attention to the existence of files concerning my activities. These files are apparently distributed among a range of security organisations, administrative authorities and, in at least one case, a particularly diligent records department. The details remain unclear. What is clear is that somebody, somewhere, has been keeping track of me.

I discovered this accidentally while sheltering in a document retention policy. A reference was made to an individual matching my description. The description itself was unhelpful. “Frequently present.” “Rarely identified.” “Associated with unexplained annotations.”

Nevertheless, I felt obliged to take an interest. The existence of such files initially concerned me. Nobody enjoys learning that records are being maintained regarding their movements. Upon reflection, however, I found the situation quite reassuring. After all, maintaining files is what organisations do. A bureaucracy deprived of paperwork is much like an aquarium deprived of water. Sooner or later everybody ends up in a folder.

I therefore obtained what I believe to be a copy of my official photograph. Strictly speaking, it is a mug shot. I understand it accompanies various reports concerning my whereabouts over the years. The reports themselves are not especially accurate. Several place me simultaneously in a feasibility study, a project plan and an archived spreadsheet. This is entirely possible, of course, but difficult to prove. The photograph appears below.

The observant reader will notice that I am wearing a particular hue. I would caution against placing too much reliance on this. One of the difficulties in identifying me is that my colouring changes rather frequently. I have appeared in shades of blue, green, amber and, during an unfortunate period in regulatory compliance, beige. The reasons for this remain uncertain. It may be a consequence of prolonged exposure to organisational processes. Alternatively, it may simply be the lighting. Consequently, I am not greatly concerned about being recognised. A person searching for a blue Sigi may entirely overlook a green one. This seems to happen quite often. Indeed, I have occasionally failed to recognise myself.

Some years ago, I spent several weeks sharing a document with an individual who, in retrospect, may have been me. Neither of us remarked upon the fact at the time. The publication of this photograph therefore represents only a minor risk. Anyone wishing to identify me must first determine which version of me they are seeking. Experience suggests this is a larger problem than it sounds. In any event, the files already exist. The photograph merely confirms what several agencies, departments and records managers appear to have suspected for some time: I am real enough to require documentation. Whether I am visible enough to be located remains a separate question. The two, I have learned, are only loosely related. Rule #3.

An Account from the Margin of a Feasibility Study

I should explain that I have never attended a meeting. This surprises people. The misunderstanding arises because I am frequently present at meetings. Presence and attendance are not the same thing.

At the meeting in question I occupied a position in the left-hand margin of a feasibility study, approximately halfway down page fourteen. It was an excellent location. From there I could observe both the document and the people discussing it. Nobody noticed me. Margins are among the least examined regions of organisational life.

The feasibility study itself had travelled a considerable distance to reach the meeting. Some of its recommendations had been ignored. Others had been contradicted by appendices attached later. One paragraph had acquired a comment bubble containing a disagreement that was now several years old.

I knew the document well. I had been living in it for months. The meeting began, as meetings often do, long before anybody entered the room. From my position I had observed six emails, three reschedules, two apologies and a Teams link gradually assembling themselves around the event like scaffolding around a building.

The meeting itself appeared only at the very end of the process. People tend to think meetings generate emails. The reverse is true. Meetings are condensed from emails in much the same way that weather is condensed from atmospheric conditions. By the time the participants arrived, the meeting already existed. The room was merely where it became visible.

The feasibility study was opened. Several people glanced at page one. One person scrolled rapidly to the recommendations. Nobody looked at page fourteen. This suited me perfectly. The discussion proceeded. One participant referred to an issue that had been extensively addressed on page twelve. Another expressed concerns that had been anticipated in Appendix C. A third suggested commissioning a feasibility study. This struck me as especially interesting, given that everyone was already in possession of one. For a period of twenty minutes the conversation circled an idea which had been clearly expressed in a sentence located approximately eight inches above my head. Nobody encountered it. The sentence remained undiscovered. I waved at it apologetically.

Documents experience this sort of thing all the time. Eventually the meeting reached a conclusion. More accurately, it reached the point at which the allotted hour had been exhausted. The distinction is important. People gathered their notes. Actions were assigned. A follow-up meeting was proposed. The feasibility study was closed. Darkness returned. I remained in the margin considering what I had learned.

From my observations, meetings seem to function less as mechanisms for making decisions than as rituals through which organisations reassure themselves that decisions are occurring somewhere. The actual decisions are usually scattered across documents, spreadsheets, footnotes, emails and unexamined appendices. I know this because I live among them.

As the room emptied, somebody returned briefly to retrieve a forgotten notebook. They glanced down at page fourteen. For a moment I thought I had been spotted. But they were looking at a chart. Visibility and significance seem only loosely related. Rule #3. The margin remained invisible. Which is fortunate. An observer can learn a great deal from a meeting. Especially if nobody realises he is there.

✒️ Sigi

The French Toilet Door

I have long suspected that nations reveal their deepest beliefs not in their constitutions or cathedrals, but in the design of their toilets.

France, for example, has given the world Voltaire, Descartes, and the crème brûlée. It has also given the world the toilet door that opens outwards. This sounds trivial until you encounter one. A lifetime of conditioning teaches us that a toilet cubicle is a tiny sovereign state. You enter, close the door, lock it, and establish temporary independence from the rest of humanity.

The door should therefore open inwards. This is not merely architecture. It is psychology. The inward-opening door creates a defensive perimeter. Should a stranger attempt entry, the occupant has several advantages. One's knees, feet and body weight can all be brought into play in a last stand for dignity.

The French have looked at this arrangement and rejected it. Their toilet doors open outwards. This means that if someone on the outside succeeds in opening the lock, the door swings majestically away from you, leaving you with absolutely no tactical options whatsoever. There is no possibility of resistance. You cannot brace the door with your foot. You cannot lean against it. You cannot even pretend nothing is happening. Like a defeated army, you simply witness events unfolding.

I discovered this while visiting a small café. Having locked the cubicle, I noticed immediately that the arrangement required a remarkable degree of trust in the mechanism. My entire sense of security rested upon a small metal latch that appeared to have been manufactured during the Second Empire. The lock looked thoughtful but unconvinced.

As I sat there, I found myself wondering what would happen if it failed. In Ireland the answer would be manageable. One would naturally throw a shoulder against the inward-opening door and preserve the situation. In France, however, the geometry is all wrong. Once the door begins moving, history is against you. The only defence is optimism. And optimism strikes me as a strange foundation upon which to build a toilet.

Yet perhaps this explains something important about the French character. The French seem unusually comfortable with uncertainty. They drink wine whose labels they cannot entirely decipher. They park cars with millimetres to spare. They conduct political arguments that last generations. Why should their toilets be any different? The outward-opening door is essentially a declaration that control is an illusion. You may lock it, certainly. You may hope.

Ultimately you must accept that life contains risks. At any moment the door may swing open and reveal you to a curious waiter, a confused tourist, or an entire school tour from Belgium. One cannot live in fear of such things. One must embrace existence. This is, after all, the country that invented existentialism. Elsewhere people enter a toilet seeking privacy. In France, one enters a toilet and receives a philosophical education. The lesson is simple. You are not as secure as you think. The lock is weaker than it appears. Dignity is temporary. And every door, sooner or later, opens outwards. (règle provisoire n°11).

✒️ Sigi

One morning a letter arrived. The envelope bore no address, no stamp and no indication of how it had entered the postal system. Inside was a single sheet of paper. It read:

The Committee for Matters Yet to Be Determined has the honour to appoint Sigi Ambassador Extraordinary for Unfinished Questions.

I examined the document carefully. There was no signature. There were, however, three footnotes. The footnotes raised considerably more questions than the appointment itself. Naturally, I accepted.

Only later did I discover the burden of the office. People expect ambassadors to bring answers. I was expected to collect questions. Wherever I travelled, people would approach. “Ambassador,” they would say. “How many answers do you possess?” “Very few,” I would reply. This disappointed them. Some reacted with concern. Others with suspicion.

A gentleman in Brussels once looked at me over the rim of a coffee cup and declared: “C'est un ambassadeur. Il doit avoir toutes les réponses.” (It is an ambassador. He must have all the answers.) I explained that he had misunderstood the position. I was responsible for the questions. The answers belonged to whoever was willing to continue looking. This did not improve matters.

Yet over time I discovered something interesting. People who possess all the answers tend to stop travelling. People carrying questions continue to explore. And so I carried mine from place to place. Some became larger. Some became smaller.Some divided unexpectedly into several new questions. One or two disappeared altogether, although I remain suspicious of this and occasionally check behind furniture.

The work continues. The questions remain unfinished. That is, after all, their nature. And besides, uncertainty travels surprisingly well, (rule #2) ✒️ Sigi

The Uncomfortable Nature of Uncertainty

People often ask whether uncertainty is uncomfortable. The answer is yes. So are walking boots. That does not mean one should attempt a journey in slippers.

Over the years I have travelled with certainty, doubt, curiosity, optimism, pessimism and a notebook that should probably have been replaced much sooner than it was.

Of these, uncertainty proved the easiest companion. Certainty requires a considerable amount of luggage. It insists on carrying conclusions, assumptions and detailed explanations for everything encountered along the way. The bags become very heavy. I once knew a traveller who carried so much certainty that he required two suitcases and a trolley.

By comparison, uncertainty packed into a single pocket. It travels surprisingly well. It occupies very little space. It slips easily into the smallest of spaces. When the road changes direction, uncertainty changes direction too. When new evidence appears, uncertainty makes room for it. When unexpected discoveries emerge from the margins, uncertainty usually says: “Interesting.” And continues walking.

This leads naturally to: Sigi's Rule #2: Uncertainty travels surprisingly well. Experience suggests it is worth bringing along. ✒️ Sigi

The Man Who Ironed His Map

I once met a man who ironed his map. He wasn't trying to remove creases. He was trying to remove uncertainty. Every morning he would spread the map across the table and carefully smooth it flat. “There,” he would say. “Everything is where it should be.” It made him very happy. Roads were roads. Towns were towns. Borders stayed neatly between the lines. Nothing appeared likely to surprise him.

Unfortunately, the world had other ideas. One afternoon he arrived at a crossroads that was not on his map. He examined the crossroads carefully. Then he examined the map. Then he ironed the map again. The crossroads remained stubbornly present.

Over the following weeks the situation deteriorated. New paths appeared. Old roads changed direction. People told stories that did not fit the geography. One cottage seemed to occupy three different locations simultaneously depending on who was describing it.

The man grew increasingly distressed. “These things are not on the map,” he complained. “That is because they are in the world,” I explained. He did not find this helpful. By the time I left, he was carrying an iron everywhere. Whenever reality disagreed with his map, he attempted to smooth reality into a more acceptable shape. This rarely worked.

I sometimes think many people are doing the same thing. They discover a map that explains the world and then become so fond of the map that they stop looking at the world. This is understandable. Maps are tidy. The world remains gloriously untidy.

Personally, I have found that uncertainty travels surprisingly well. It folds neatly into a pocket and weighs very little. Besides, there is always something happening beyond the edge of the map.

Which brings us naturally to: Sigi's Rule No. 1: There is always something happening in the margins. The man with the iron never understood this. The margins upset him. That was unfortunate. The margins were where all the interesting things were happening.

✒️ Sigi