Dear Nazem, it is always a pleasure to read your work.
The above essay covers a theme I have been ruminating over for the past few months. It is about the dichotomy between the map and the territory.
As you eloquently wrote, we perceive the map while ignoring the territory. That said, in the present era, even the map is distorted. I wager that the map itself has now become a hyperreal territory, so we created a second map that covers the first.
Simply, we mapped the map, and the territory has become detached from our perceived hyperreality.
….
There are still places in my home country, Bulgaria, where oikonomia is a way of existence. Hospitality, stewardship, and cohesion are not performative but authentic acts. Basically, those people perceive and breathe territory. No map (or map of the map) detected.
Of course, this is not a tirade against progress. It is a reminder to me to keep the flame of traditions and the spark of progress intact at the same time.
Humans need two legs to move. So why must we choose between left and right leg, or traditions and progress, when we can embrace both?
Dear Mihail, this is the comment I have been hoping someone would make, and you have given it more fully than I dared write it.
You are right about the map of the map. Baudrillard saw the first iteration. What you are describing is the recursive one — the S&P is the map of the economy, the VIX is the map of the map, and the trader is now four steps removed from the actual lives of actual people in actual rooms. The disturbing part is that the further we move from the territory, the cleaner our forecasts look. The map of the map scrolls in red and green. It updates every second. It produces clean numbers. The territory, by contrast, is messy, slow, ambiguous, and full of people whose lives do not resolve into a metric. We have stopped looking at the dial and started looking at indices of the dial. And we have stopped noticing that we have done so.
But the heart of your comment is the part about Bulgaria, and I want to honour it specifically. What you are describing is the answer to the essay. The cornerstones are not a memory. They are still being practised, in real rooms, by real people, in places where the map has not yet swallowed the territory. The fact that you have been in such rooms — that you can still smell the bread and feel the welcome — is the most hopeful thing anyone has said in response to the piece. The essay was written in a register of mourning. Your testimony reframes it. The older ethic is not gone. It has retreated to certain villages, certain valleys, certain houses where the old way of looking is still the air of the room. And from those rooms, perhaps, the practice can be carried back.
Your closing line is the wisdom the essay was reaching for and did not quite reach. Humans need two legs to move. That is exactly right. The piece refused the binary between progress and tradition, but you have shown the affirmative version. We do not have to choose. We are not asked to choose. We are asked to learn how to walk again, with both legs, on terrain that has shifted beneath us. Tradition without progress becomes a museum. Progress without tradition becomes a feed. The work, perhaps the only real work, is to keep both moving in the same direction at the same time.
Thank you for this. I will be thinking about your two legs for a long time.
This line, "Tradition without progress becomes a museum. Progress without tradition becomes a feed," carries profound wisdom. It tells all about the cost of division between tradition and progress.
Mihail — that line was the gift of your comment, not mine. You drew it out of what I was trying to say and made it visible. The cost of the division is the whole quiet tragedy of the moment we are living, and you named it more cleanly than I did.
Two essays have run since — The War That Did Not End and The Tower That Never Opened. Both ask what it means to live inside a country where the museum and the feed have started doing the same work, each burying the territory under its own layer of polish. Cambodia is where I went looking for the answer.
This was a deep one Nazem Bhai 🙏🙏 When I started my career in the early 1990s, there were no phones and no screens, not in India atleast. MTV was launched in 1992 and phones came 4 years later.
I was a sales guy and probably had more bad days than good ones. You could walk into one of those good old Irani cafes and just sit and get your time. The waiter knew you and gave a cold glass of water and hot cup of chai. People smiled at you and an acquaintance spoke with you ... You could detach from your work and relax.
Everything changed in a few years. Now it is always on world and screens have become the extension of your physical existence and mental conwebs. Can I even detach and relax even at home?
But then, it was this IT boom that provided well for us and gave us our prosperity. Should I even complain? Stock markets have been good and provide the icing on the proverbial cake.
I still try to spend as much time as possible reading the physical books. But the screens keep interrupting LOL. Mobile Assabiyah of the modern world 😁
Srinivas Bhai, this is exactly the conversation the essay was hoping for, and you have given it more honestly than I could have written it.
The Irani café you describe is the same room as the Fishawy. Different coffee, different language, same ethic. The waiter who knew you, the cold water before you asked, the acquaintance who would speak with you for no reason — these are oikonomia in practice, the household run for human flourishing rather than for accumulation. We did not name it that. We did not need to. It was just the air of the room.
Your honesty about the contradiction is the part most readers do not reach. Yes, the IT boom provided. Yes, the markets gave the icing. Yes, prosperity is real and not to be dismissed. The harder truth is that the same wave that lifted us also rewired the rooms we used to detach in. The Irani café is still there. We just no longer know how to sit in it the way we once did, because the phone is in our pocket and the phone has become, as you say, the extension of our physical existence.
Mobile asabiyyah — I am stealing that phrase, with credit. It is exactly the diagnosis. The binding spirit of our age is the shared object on the screen, and we polish it together five thousand times a day while the older bindings quietly rust.
Keep reading the physical books. The interruption is the whole battle. Every page finished is a small victory.
Dear Nazem, it is always a pleasure to read your work.
The above essay covers a theme I have been ruminating over for the past few months. It is about the dichotomy between the map and the territory.
As you eloquently wrote, we perceive the map while ignoring the territory. That said, in the present era, even the map is distorted. I wager that the map itself has now become a hyperreal territory, so we created a second map that covers the first.
Simply, we mapped the map, and the territory has become detached from our perceived hyperreality.
….
There are still places in my home country, Bulgaria, where oikonomia is a way of existence. Hospitality, stewardship, and cohesion are not performative but authentic acts. Basically, those people perceive and breathe territory. No map (or map of the map) detected.
Of course, this is not a tirade against progress. It is a reminder to me to keep the flame of traditions and the spark of progress intact at the same time.
Humans need two legs to move. So why must we choose between left and right leg, or traditions and progress, when we can embrace both?
Dear Mihail, this is the comment I have been hoping someone would make, and you have given it more fully than I dared write it.
You are right about the map of the map. Baudrillard saw the first iteration. What you are describing is the recursive one — the S&P is the map of the economy, the VIX is the map of the map, and the trader is now four steps removed from the actual lives of actual people in actual rooms. The disturbing part is that the further we move from the territory, the cleaner our forecasts look. The map of the map scrolls in red and green. It updates every second. It produces clean numbers. The territory, by contrast, is messy, slow, ambiguous, and full of people whose lives do not resolve into a metric. We have stopped looking at the dial and started looking at indices of the dial. And we have stopped noticing that we have done so.
But the heart of your comment is the part about Bulgaria, and I want to honour it specifically. What you are describing is the answer to the essay. The cornerstones are not a memory. They are still being practised, in real rooms, by real people, in places where the map has not yet swallowed the territory. The fact that you have been in such rooms — that you can still smell the bread and feel the welcome — is the most hopeful thing anyone has said in response to the piece. The essay was written in a register of mourning. Your testimony reframes it. The older ethic is not gone. It has retreated to certain villages, certain valleys, certain houses where the old way of looking is still the air of the room. And from those rooms, perhaps, the practice can be carried back.
Your closing line is the wisdom the essay was reaching for and did not quite reach. Humans need two legs to move. That is exactly right. The piece refused the binary between progress and tradition, but you have shown the affirmative version. We do not have to choose. We are not asked to choose. We are asked to learn how to walk again, with both legs, on terrain that has shifted beneath us. Tradition without progress becomes a museum. Progress without tradition becomes a feed. The work, perhaps the only real work, is to keep both moving in the same direction at the same time.
Thank you for this. I will be thinking about your two legs for a long time.
— Nazem
Thanks for your kind words.
This line, "Tradition without progress becomes a museum. Progress without tradition becomes a feed," carries profound wisdom. It tells all about the cost of division between tradition and progress.
PS: Looking forward to your next essay.
Mihail — that line was the gift of your comment, not mine. You drew it out of what I was trying to say and made it visible. The cost of the division is the whole quiet tragedy of the moment we are living, and you named it more cleanly than I did.
Two essays have run since — The War That Did Not End and The Tower That Never Opened. Both ask what it means to live inside a country where the museum and the feed have started doing the same work, each burying the territory under its own layer of polish. Cambodia is where I went looking for the answer.
I would be glad to know what stayed with you.
— Nazem
This was a deep one Nazem Bhai 🙏🙏 When I started my career in the early 1990s, there were no phones and no screens, not in India atleast. MTV was launched in 1992 and phones came 4 years later.
I was a sales guy and probably had more bad days than good ones. You could walk into one of those good old Irani cafes and just sit and get your time. The waiter knew you and gave a cold glass of water and hot cup of chai. People smiled at you and an acquaintance spoke with you ... You could detach from your work and relax.
Everything changed in a few years. Now it is always on world and screens have become the extension of your physical existence and mental conwebs. Can I even detach and relax even at home?
But then, it was this IT boom that provided well for us and gave us our prosperity. Should I even complain? Stock markets have been good and provide the icing on the proverbial cake.
I still try to spend as much time as possible reading the physical books. But the screens keep interrupting LOL. Mobile Assabiyah of the modern world 😁
Srinivas Bhai, this is exactly the conversation the essay was hoping for, and you have given it more honestly than I could have written it.
The Irani café you describe is the same room as the Fishawy. Different coffee, different language, same ethic. The waiter who knew you, the cold water before you asked, the acquaintance who would speak with you for no reason — these are oikonomia in practice, the household run for human flourishing rather than for accumulation. We did not name it that. We did not need to. It was just the air of the room.
Your honesty about the contradiction is the part most readers do not reach. Yes, the IT boom provided. Yes, the markets gave the icing. Yes, prosperity is real and not to be dismissed. The harder truth is that the same wave that lifted us also rewired the rooms we used to detach in. The Irani café is still there. We just no longer know how to sit in it the way we once did, because the phone is in our pocket and the phone has become, as you say, the extension of our physical existence.
Mobile asabiyyah — I am stealing that phrase, with credit. It is exactly the diagnosis. The binding spirit of our age is the shared object on the screen, and we polish it together five thousand times a day while the older bindings quietly rust.
Keep reading the physical books. The interruption is the whole battle. Every page finished is a small victory.
— Nazem