A collaboration of the physical forms of the world with the imagination of humans
I’ve just finished reading the book Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination by Robert Macfarlane. First published in 2003, it’s about the history of human fascination with mountains – something close to my own heart, as my interest in hiking in the Lake District has grown over the past 5 years.
There are themes of navigation, maps, and imagination in the book, with some helpful parallels with service design to be made.
The following quotes are shared with some of my thoughts:
“Our responses to [landscapes] are, for the most part, culturally devised. That is to say, when we look at a landscape, we do not see what is there, but largely what we think is there. We attribute qualities to a landscape which it does not intrinsically possess […] and we value it accordingly.
What we call a mountain is thus in fact a collaboration of the physical forms of the world with the imagination of humans – a mountain of the mind.”
What I find compelling here is how we navigate a collaboration between what’s real and our imagination.
Anyone who thinks about how we navigate situations, or any sort of complex landscape, will instinctively know this… We approach the work via what we think is there. We attribute qualities and values – determining the relative importance of things. This is deeply set in organisational culture, and the assumptions that we start from.
Also, recognising the physical realities of how landscapes remain in place, unmoved. Described in the book as mountains that are, “simply there, and there they remain.” But what shapes reality, perception, and understanding is how we apply imagination.
“On early European maps […] Where knowledge faded out, legend began: the fantastical creatures which populated these early maps were embodiments of the unknown: little cartoons of ignorance. By the fifteenth century, however, these magical portmanteau beasts – body of a lion, head of a snake, would be more or less extinct from maps, chased off their edges by the spread of knowledge, though they would survive for far longer in the imaginations of mariners, explorers and travellers.”
I’ve used this example of old map-making in the past. There’s a strong link between imagination, mythology and the creativity involved with being curious about unknown spaces.
While the spread of knowledge eventually leads to complete and detailed maps… Thinking about how we use imagination, we should still have “there be dragons” moments in the process of mapping. This is where we allow spaces between what is known to exist and what can be further explored.
“Maps give you seven-league boots – allow you to cover miles in seconds. Using the point of a pencil to trace the line of an intended walk or climb, you can soar over crevasses, leap tall cliff-faces at a single bound and effortlessly ford rivers.
On a map the weather is always good, the visibility always perfect. A map offers you the power of perspective over a landscape.
Maps do not take account of time, only of space. They do not acknowledge how a landscape is constantly on the move – is constantly revising itself.”
This provides a useful description of the benefits of maps as well as their limitations. Both of these aspects are found when we flatten time and space through the process of map-making.
“…And if something goes wrong in the mountains, then time shivers and reconfigures itself about the moment, that incident. Everything leads up to it, or spirals out of it. Temporarily, you have a new centre of existence.”
This is the importance of recognising pivotal human moments in map-making. The lens through which everything else has to be seen. It’s also a reminder that everything has a before and after (the “lead up” and the “spiral”).
Speaking to something going wrong on the mountain, the book talks about how everything reverts to a basic hierarchy of needs – warmth, safety, etc. This type of focus on needs puts a different emphasis and urgency on what needs to happen, and is what brings clarity through how events then unfold.
“Returning to earth after being in the mountains – stepping back out of the wardrobe – can be a disorientating experience.”
Later in the book, Robert Macfarlane uses the analogy of visiting Narnia. A strange world in deep winter. But more so, the disorientating experience of stepping back and forth between a magical world and back into reality.
I feel that, sometimes at least, we don’t treat future possibilities as magical enough spaces, something curiosity can pull us into – finding our way through the wardrobe (to continue the analogy). This type of curiosity can lead us to many possibilities. Most importantly, creating the space to step further into exploring those new worlds.
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