My Maps

So I've learned a great deal about how to navigate Google maps, and although I'm by no means a professional at it, I certainly am proud of myself for being able to figure out as much as I have. I think what amazes me the most is the fact that all of my markers or tags are along the eastern coast of the United States, other than one which is Minnesota. I don't think I actually realized how few places I've been outside of this one vicinity within the U.S., until I mapped it all and saw for myself the limiting scope of my geographic experience. In a way this is exciting because there are so many places left on this enormous globe that I haven't even touched. In another way this is a bit disheartening because I see how small I am in comparison to the world. I literally, from a great distance, look like a dot on a map, one tiny little dot in reference to the entire globe. It's frightening to look at I must admit. I noticed a theme though in terms of what places I found to be relevant enough to map, and they revolved around my family, yoga, parks/recreation, boyfriends, major life events, and habitual places I frequent. This to me denotes a certain sense of security that I personally find in remaining connected to the local versus the global and how my own life revolves around people and events and things that relate to me as an individual and not necessarily to the greater picture of the world. This mirrors to a certain extent, the place in life at which I find myself currently, because I do have this sense of sheltering about my life and yet I want to break free of that and move beyond the physical, emotional, and mental boundaries formed throughout my past. But, it is very true that that literally and metaphorically has not happened, but it certainly is in the process of happening, which is why I can now look at the world and say 'I want more, I want that, and I want to explore", instead of saying "Oh, well, my life is here and that's all that I need, and that's all I'll ever want', because this just isn't true anymore.

In turning my discussion over to the reading, I wanted to bring up a quotation that stuck in my mind:" The map is not the territory, but rather a representation of it"--I think that it took me a while to realize the significance of this statement because not only is my map not the whole story in terms of mapping my life, but it does not do justice to the places themselves, and the territories are simply tagged on this symbolic representation that is supposed to encompass all my experiences at each of the locations all at once, but it doens't, and really can't do that, b/c it is after all, just a map. Sorry if this run-on is a bit confusing but I wrote in in the stream of consciousness in which it came out.

I think that the reading is useful for beginning to think about mapping in a more creative way, because I've always thought of mapping as one dimensional, but in fact I am realizing that it is not. The reading about Introducting cyberspace made me consider the ways in which spaces/places are marked and recognized. They can be recognized based upon their relation to another space/place, or perhaps they are tagged by a memory such as was the case with my map. In terms of the google map I made, all of my places are located within the globe and are thus confined to this singular space so to a certain extent that can't extend physically beyond the world itself. But they do extend metaphorically beyond the map and its confines because my map is not just of spots, locations, or time markers, it is a map of all of these things plus the memories, pictures, and such that I associate with these places. This in a way makes the places unique to me and my experience b/c no one else is going to go to Minnesota and have the same exact experience in the same exact place and time as I will. Likewise, I cannot match anyone else's experiences in any of the locations they choose to map, even if I go there too. Htis is what makes mapping so interesting, because even if at a glance two maps look the same, they in fact, never can be because the people behind the creation of those maps don't come to those maps with the same life experiences.
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