The Map is not the Territory,
and if the two disagree,
we will take this insult,
this egregious injustice,
to be the fault of the malice of the Map,
and we’ll begin corrections
at once.
if the Territory conformeth not
to that which we see, marked clearly
on our charts—
(here be no
Dragons);
if it lacks that level of sheer decency,
it deserves what it gets.
hammers,
pick-axes,
shovels,
earth-movers,
sonic displacement,
dynamite;
that which exists,
the shape and features of the Land,
it all exists on sufferance,
and sufferance alone.
The Land was here before,
and now it’s ours,
and none may take it from us,
and it is to behave,
behave,
do you hear me?
We trust those who made our Maps.
We trust those who sold us our Maps.
We trust those whose Maps we revere
(and cursed be those
whose Maps
we no longer favor.)
The Maps tell us what is there;
the true territory.
The ground we tread,
the soil we plant,
the roads we build,
these,
these things are not real.
If they’re not on the Map,
they’re hallucinations.
Surely the worst hallucinations are those
you can see, hear, feel, fall into, climb
out of, touch, smell, sense, understand.
What would happen if we believed
that which we experience
instead of that
which we were told?
There would be contradiction,
cognitive dissonance,
challenge.
We might not know what to do.
But if we believe the Maps,
we know,
we know what to do.
We turn where they turn. We cross bridges
where they tell us to cross bridges.
If there’s no bridge, we curse
the bridgemaker,
order that village disappeared,
shake our heads at the now-smoking crater,
change the Maps ourselves.
Or we just
leave the village
off the Map,
and it is
no more.
If anyone tells us
that they’ve seen people,
livelihood,
even a whole village
somewhere
where the Map
shows none,
we take the tellers off the Map,
as well.
The rough ways will be
made smooth,
or removed,
whichever comes first.
In fact,
eventually,
one can save a lot of effort,
and valuable time, time, time
if one no longer partakes in
the treacherous world
of the Territory.
What is there, out in the Territory?
The Maps describe the World;
we need not see the World ourselves.
the Maps can be altered, changed,
with a few strokes of the quill;
and if one sometimes need have them re-drawn
altogether,
does that not make one a Patron of the Arts?
Why go out into the World,
the wicked World,
to measure What Is against what is described?
Think on it, and you’ll realize
that the physical world is blasphemy.
Does not all sin arise from the physical
tempting the spiritual?
How, too, then,
must the so-called “real” World
find its apex of temptation
when it asks you to weigh its so-called
‘truth’,
the abominable “reality”
against the controlled loveliness
of the picture!
“Truth”? Insanity.
Trust what you think you experience
with your treacherous senses,
instead of the stark and beautiful
actuality
of what we want to believe?
No, never.
That is the path to Disappearance, my friend.
To distrust the Map
is to be written off the Map;
so decree the Makers of Maps,
and so shall it be.
The Map is not the Territory;
there is no Territory,
it’s all Map,
and to say otherwise
is death.
And so, none question the Map,
and the Map is accurate,
and any discrepancies
are the fault of
traitors.
We’re surrounded by
traitors,
monsters,
for how else could the World ever
seem,
even for a moment,
unlike how we describe it?
But slowly,
we will erase the traitors,
erase the monsters,
remove everything
which disagrees
from the Truth
as we know it,
and then,
nothing will challenge
our Truth,
our Map,
our certainty
of how the World
Is.
The Territory is dead;
long live the Map.
The preceding essay was brought to you by Dark Lords For Azathoth, and may not necessarily reflect the views of the being who wrote, edited, posted, and marketed this document.
My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities and create things. Every year, I put on Evil Expo, the Greatest Place in the World to be a Villain. I also write a lot of fantasy and science fiction. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, order “I HATE Your Prophecy“ It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.
