"Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feeling groovy."
Paul Simon, " 59th Street Bridge Song," 1965
An 83-year old friend told me to give myself a break.
"You aren't listening to your body," he said. "You wanted to keep up with the farm workers you hired, so you overdid it. You lost perspective on yourself and you reopened your hernia. Your pain is a message. Don't try to work through it. Enjoy idleness. Idleness is wisdom."
He cited Pierre Teilhard de Chadin, as if that would give weight to his advice. My friend is ten years older than I am, and I respect his experience.
So, in idleness and in search of perspective, I googled "maps that will change your perspective." Also "curious maps that will change how you see the world." There are a wealth of sites to occupy idleness. Maps like these:
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| A projection that shows the true size of continents |
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| Perspective on population sizes |
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| Perspective on reality vs. media |
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| Perspective on public employee salaries |
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| Perspective on Gerrymandering |
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| Perspective on where people live |
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| Perspective and clarification of "England," "Great Britain," "United Kingdom", and "British Isles." |
There are hundreds more maps like these. I am taking it easy.
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9 comments:
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm eighty-four
While you’re resting, you might also enjoy Jon Meacham’s latest, And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle. It’s a good reminder of what today’s culture wars are still all about.
Everything old is new again.
Your friends remarks on not listening to your body struck home, as a very good friend I f mine is refusing to accept that she cannot do at 71 what she did even 20 years earlier. Forwarding this to her, maybe she'll listen to your friend. Thank you, Peter.
Young people have healthy bodies and time. Old people (who are smart/fortunate) have money.
The appropriate tradeoff is obvious to me: whenever possible, I spend money instead of risking my health and using up some of the ever more limited time available to me.
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Very cool maps. Thanks!
Euler's Diagram-Map is very helpful. We're heading to Iceland and the British Isles at the end of the month.
That map explains a lot that I've wondered about when thinking about all the places we'll be visiting after Iceland.
M2 in fla, the only accurate way to view a map of the earth , or even a relatively small part of it, is to view a globe. Proof? Try laying a piece of paper over a basketball, etc. Doesn’t work at all well :)
Even flat maps of small areas, though they appear accurate at a glance, are not. Look at your assessor's maps, for instance. All the section maps that border a township line will have a north line measurably shorter than its south line (in the northern hemisphere.
Unfortunately, a spherical map of the earth cannot travel gracefully, but it’s cool to look at a globe to get your bearings, before you leave. Note: Iceland looks smaller on a globe, for semi-obvious reasons
Malcolm, absolutely! I have gloves, new and old. Books with maps, old and new. It is a hobby of mine.
At one time, I encountered the Peter Projection, and it was of great interest since my best friend is named Peter.
I've explored many map apps, that let me plot great circle routes for distances and directions.
At one time a room of our home had the typical flat projection so I could show my sone all of our travels.
I've been interested in maps and gloves since my elementary years.
What was most interesting from Peter's original post was learning about the British Isles from a non-traditional map viewpoint that was well done.
As for Iceland, not only is it a small island country, it also has quite a small population. Also, geographically, part of it demonstrates plate tectonics, and one can stand astride a crack in the earth with one foot in Europe and the other in North America.
Globes, not gloves. Of course!
Globes, not gloves, of course!
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