Too XYZ Classic: Screw Cartography

Just over a year ago, I published this post, decrying the rampant need for people, organizations and institutions to put themselves "on the map".

Success, and even fame are one thing. But they ought to be the result of working towards a mission. That mission, I said a year ago, and maintain today, cannot be fame and notoriety in its own right. If being  "put on the map" if the underlying impetus for everything you do, you aren't doing much.

Since I published this I have announced the start of my own theatre company, The Parapet Players. I am currently in the midst of building a new website. I am revising my first novel, and outlining a second. I seek my freelance writing work. And yet in each of these cases my goal is to create a quality product, not to "get on the map".

I'd like to be on the map someday in any and all of these endeavors, of course. But I simply won't rearrange what I have in order to go right for the map. I should get on the map because of what I have done, not because I have pursued a course of action designed to do so.

You wouldn't believe how many times I've seen something that is established go to pot because the decide they need to "expand" and get on this map. And don't even get me started on placed that aren't even established, who decide the answer is to shoot for the map right away.

And my old high school? Their plans to build a new facility which I mentioned in the original post? They have now been totally abandoned. They will instead take over the facility of middle school that has moved out of the area. That just about sums it up as far as they and their "map" are concerned.

How important is "getting on the map" to you?