Once upon a time, there was a cartographer who had never left his home. He spent many nights drawing maps based on what he had heard and what others did. He was safe in his home, and he had some friends nearby. Truly, he loved the world. He loved talking about it. He loved dreaming about it. He loved exploring it, well, without really leaving his home. He felt like he had to know where he was going before going out, and that could only be done when he would be finished with his map.
He didn't understand how others went out into the world…because…what if you got lost? What if you walked up the wrong mountain and found yourself in the forest? He didn't think he could ever get out of a forest again. When he was a child, he had gone out and gotten lost in a forest in the dark. It was so scary that he decided he would never go back.
But there was this one land on the map he always wanted to go to. There was something in him that desired to be there. It was a land where there was much security. It had the ocean and the mountains, and he felt like that was where he should be. He kept pushing it back because he could not fully map out that place based on stories alone, and he didn't want to go out and get lost on the way.
One day, a little dog whimpered outside his door. He never had an animal, but since it was raining and the dog was so loud that he couldn't sleep, he took the dog in. It was the cutest little thing, and he fell in love. He cared for the dog, gave it some of his food.
The only problem was that the dog wanted to go outside. The dog needed to go outside to run around and sniff here and there, and do the occasional poop and pee. Since he had become so besotted with the dog, he made a leash out of his clothes, opened the door a little bit, and let the dog out on the leash.
He didn't go out himself. Gosh, no. But after some time, the dog wanted more and more, and one day (some might say by accident, others say on purpose), the leash got stuck, so stuck that the cartographer had to step out and undo the knot that the dog had tied by running around a tree.
The cartographer was so confused at his being out in the world and he was scared—wanting to go back inside because he had not yet mapped everything. Even his lawn was scary and the possible disasters that could happen were numerous.
He looked at the sun dipping below the horizon. He had to know absolutely the way to this beautiful land, or else he could just imagine the worst. Maybe there were some monsters hiding somewhere in the darkness (he was sure of it) that would hurt him.
He sat down by the tree and started petting the dog, and the dog fell asleep by his side. It looked like the leash was pulling too much on his neck, so the cartographer removed it and fell asleep as well. But when he woke up, the dog was gone.
He yelled out his name, “dog, dog,” but there was nothing to do. He didn't think before going home, grabbing some fruits, and walking out into the world searching for his friend. He didn't even take the maps he had been drawing, but when he realized that midway, he realized that he knew them by heart by then, mostly.
He met an old woman who was walking towards the village, it appeared, and he asked her, “Where are you going?”
She said, “Back to my house. I'm coming from the village.” He was very confused at this and asked her if she was sure of that. She started looking around and seemed a little lost.
Since he remembered his maps and knew she wasn't walking in the right direction, he turned her around and told her that this was where her house would be.
He continued on his way. He was still scared that there would be some monster coming out of nowhere or some happenstance that would send him running back to his home.
After he rounded a little hill, a beggar asked for some money. He didn't have anything but gave him an apple. Just as the beggar was taking the apple from his hand, he pushed the cartographer backwards and stole his bag.
“This is it,” lamented the cartographer. “The world is out to get me, and I will never make it.”
He sat there on the floor crying, and after some time, a man came and stood above him. “Where are you trying to go?” asked the man.
“There's no point in trying. I have been robbed of everything I own, and my dog is lost forever.” He continued sobbing.
Then the man recognized him. “Ah,” he said. “It is you who helped my mother find her way home. Come, come, I will bring you to the village, and we will get you some food.”
So he grabbed the cartographer by the shoulders, and they walked towards the village together. The cartographer was dumbfounded. He hadn't dared to think that strangers would help him and go out of their way to do that, but then again, he had done the same with that old woman.
In the city, they hugged him and gave him a warm meal and a bed to sleep in.
The next morning, he left the village once more with a bag full of apples, oats, and water.
As he walked along the dirt road, a little child sitting on a wooden fence watched him pass. The child hopped down, jogged to catch up with his long strides, and asked, “Where are you walking to?”
“I'm going to look for my dog,” the cartographer said, slowing his pace.
The child walked beside him for a few steps, looking at the bag slung over his shoulder. “What is your job?”
“I draw maps,” the cartographer replied.
The child’s eyes widened. “Well, you must have been everywhere!”
The cartographer stopped in his tracks. He looked at his boots, covered in road dust, and then back at the small face looking up at him.
“No,” he said. “Actually, I haven't been anywhere. I've been inside, waiting to finish drawing the map.”
The child looked at him, shrugged, and said, “That's very sad.”
The child waved and ran back toward the fence.
The cartographer stood there for a moment, listening to the wind rustle through the long grass. Yes, he thought, adjusting his bag. It was sad. But I am not inside anymore.
He continued walking, and as he did, he realized that his thoughts were still there, but not as present. In his home, they had been bouncing from wall to wall and had become so loud that he could not even hear the wind outside. Here, he could hear the wind and feel the sun on his skin. Smell the flowers as he passed them and know that rain would come just by looking at the graying sky.
As the sun began to dip below the hills, casting long, golden shadows across the path, the cartographer slowed his steps. He didn't panic about where he would sleep or whether a monster was waiting in the dark. He simply sat down beneath a tall oak tree at the edge of a meadow and rested his hands in his lap.
He closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath. His chest rose effortlessly. His lungs filled with the sweet, cool evening air, without him needing to command them to do so.
How do I breathe? he wondered. I don't draw a map for my lungs. My body just knows.
There was no missing piece. There never had been. In every single moment, he had everything he needed. He just forgot.
He had spent years locked away, convinced he was lacking something—that he was too empty, too unprepared, too small to face the vast world. But sitting here on the grass, he looked back at everything that had happened since he stepped over his threshold. He had remembered the roads without his paper maps. He had guided the lost mother home. He had survived losing his bag. He had received kindness from strangers and given kindness in return.
There was no scarcity. The strength, the knowledge, the direction, and the capability he thought he had to “find” out in the world were already inside him the entire time. They had simply been waiting under the noise of his thinking.
He did not need a finished map of his whole life. He did not need an absolute guarantee of tomorrow, or a grand sign pointing the way. All he ever had to do—all anyone ever had to do—was slow down, listen to the breath in his chest, and take one step after the other.
A little voice inside his head said, “But what is the first step? I have to take the perfect step or else I will get lost if I walk the wrong path.”
He opened his eyes to the darkening sky, which was already filling with bright, scattered stars.
From across the meadow, a faint bark echoed through the trees, followed by the rustle of dry leaves. A familiar little tail began to wag in the tall grass.
The cartographer smiled, stood up on steady feet, and took his next step into the unknown with the dog by his side.
