I hate being lost.

It's one of my biggest fears and it's been that way for as long as I can remember. That's probably why I gravitated towards maps as a child.

What is a map?

Maps do more than orient you to a specific place in time. Maps are truth tellers.

Honest aids - that in addition to helping you not get lost - hold a powerful amount of data.

What a map does

They show where various points and landmarks are in relation to others. They also provide ideas for places you might want to visit in the future, and help determine places to avoid (wastes of time. dangerous or restricted areas).

In their silent manner, a good one informs savvy viewers what is and is not important, based only on what the map designer decided to place within its borders.

In short, maps (in addition to helping you find your way) are powerful storytellers.

I believe we all possess that power to become map makers of our own stories. (You do too!)

Why write a memoir in the context of maps?

It was for the above reasons and more I decided to write this first volume of my memoir with map making and interpretation at the heart of it.

Yes I could have done the standard "I was born here, did this, went there, blah blah shit" but I found this frame to be a much more interesting one to write from.

I hope you do as well.

Rediscovering and Retelling My Story

Stories are the lifeblood of the human experience. Every law, mandate, value etc that you follow or believe (or put another way) the operating system of your life, is anchored in stories real and imagined.

So I'm telling a better one for myself, while showing you how to do the same.

How am I gonna pull this off?

Read my next Atomic Essay to see how I do it.

A note about this memoir

(btw I probably won't be able to complete the entire memoir during Ship30, but I plan to make great strides in progress this month.

If you want to keep up with the entire memoir, see my website keithhayden.net for information on where the public version will hosted. Haven't decided on where that will be as of this writing.)

See you next time.