THE ATLAS STORIES · I
AWARENESS
A short story from The Mask is the World
What would the perfect map of human knowledge look like? Could it show us what matters, what we do not know, and where we should go next?
Idriss has spent a lifetime trying to draw it.
READING TIME · approximately 5 minutes
Idriss looked at the papers in front of him, but he didn’t see them as they were— a pile of lines and abstract symbols, drawn in different styles. Heaps of shapes and maps and designs could be seen behind the pages, and in front of them, and they accelerated in his mind as he oscillated between possibilities that coloured tens of years he spent trying to shape all these thoughts into the most amazing one: The Perfect Map…
He glanced… and felt pain squeezing his chest.
It was somehow a real pain, but it was also of the type that was planted in the world of reflection by a partnership between regret and despair.
The perfect map. The dream – obsession. The search of a lifetime that has never ended. The enchanting siren.
The perfect map is the map that can trace all the world’s knowledge, in the smallest number of symbols. The perfect map can show an onlooker how little they know, and how to choose the best path of learning.
Not many believed him when he said it was possible, and he has spent all these years trying to make it… trying to employ all his knowledge of letters, words, and symbols used by his countrymen.
They don’t believe me because they don’t want to let go of the past… This is their problem.
They don’t want to let go of their ‘wise ones’. Our people have relied on them for so long to get instructions about what to learn. They think that the wise ones, with their experience and understanding of humanity, can choose the right path… but why should we cling to the ways of the past forever?
Is it because our parents, and their parents before them did that? Is that our holy duty?
He frequently said such things to people.
He believed that letters and words and stories that everyone knew contained all the wisdom and knowledge in them, and that there was no need to limit this potential by making it exclusively connected to a limited group of old masters.
One well-made map can fit the path to all this knowledge.
The greatest challenge for Idriss was to create a set of symbols that everyone could understand… It had to be abstract enough to be easily understood, and at this same time, it had to mobilise and move all the known symbols… and this was the problem.
Simplification and brevity from one side, and summoning all the knowledge stored in symbols and baggage on the other.
All those years, and the problem of finding the right balance between abstraction and specificity remained the same, and still blocked his way. How does he choose and frame the suitable symbols? Should the map look like a tree? Should it look like a pyramid? Should it look like a net?
He couldn’t draw the perfect map yet, but his calculations showed – undeniably – that it was possible.
He frequently approached despair, but never stopped looking. As he spent more time searching, it became clearer to him that he will need even more time. The more time he spent working, the harder it became to leave this quest.
He tried different groups of symbols and letters, some invented and some deduced from existing ones… and he wasn’t satisfied.
This is how he spent all those years looking for the perfect map and trying to make it… and he didn’t stop trying.
In the brief, frustration-tinged moments of despair, he felt weakness… but they were now becoming a pain in his chest.
He looked at all these papers, and saw all the hours he spent making them, and they would all overlap and upset him. The pain grew, and his chest became tighter.
He decided to leave his desk to go out to the street to breathe better, and he was scared.
In front of his house he found a child, and he knew later that this was a little prince.
The little prince asked him about the way to the rose garden, because one of them was his friend.
The prince was nice and polite, and Idriss wanted to help him, with all his heart. He felt strange affection towards him.
He drew on a small paper the way to the rose garden.
The little prince was overjoyed with the sketch, and continued his walk.
When the prince was gone, Idriss recalled what he drew…
The map was very simple and very beautiful.
It was easy to understand, and had simple shapes that represented everything the prince could see on the way, and the best way to go.
It was impossible to forget.
Still, the symbols of this map were new and strange. He didn’t write letters and words as they were, even if his understanding of symbols helped him draw.
That was when he realised something…
Something that must have been brewing in his mind for long.
Something he should have seen before.
The wise men were wrong… and I was wrong too. I – like them – didn’t let go of the past.
The perfect map of knowledge can’t be drawn with old symbols like the wise men would try… because knowledge and symbols always change.
It can’t be drawn with symbols too abstract, as I was trying… because then it would become a map of symbols, not a map of knowledge.
We need symbols forever new… many as the stars… created from other – known – symbols… when we need them.
We need a stranger’s surprising visit… missing his friend… to draw the road leading to a beautiful rose garden.
It was then that the pain became unbearable… and he fell to the ground.
A faint smile appeared on his lips… It had a lot of gratitude and grace… and a silent admiration for the beauty of everything… for its perfection… as it is.
The map exists, and it has existed for some time.
His last deed on earth was a wise one… and that was meant to be from the start.
His last deed was an act of creativeness and awareness at once.
He has created the perfect map.
Beyond the Story: The Map
The Path to the Perfect Map is one of three stories in The Mask is the World that correspond to the three movements of The Atlas of Worldly Wisdom: Awareness, Intent, and Creativeness.
The map represents Awareness: our attempt to turn an impossibly large world of knowledge into something useful enough to navigate. Every map leaves things out. Every map reflects its maker. And every useful map eventually has to change.
The Atlas begins from the same problem: “What should I know, what matters here, and how can knowledge become useful?”
| AWARENESS | INTENT | CREATIVENESS |
|---|---|---|
| 🗺️ The Path to the Perfect Map | 🌉 We Will Cross the Bridge | 🗿 My Last Sculpture |
| Knowledge → Awareness | Planning → Intent | Action → Creativeness |
Explore the Ideas → The Atlas of Worldly Wisdom
Explore the Stories → The Mask is the World