The Map Room

A beautiful, personal piece by Daniel Huffman on how cartography helped him overcome depression. Here’s an excerpt, but you should really read it all.

I made a lot of maps during that period; it was one of the only activities that gave me any sort of positive emotion. I had actually started a cartographic hobby a few months earlier, before I moved to Madison. As far back as I can recall, I liked reading maps. I used to be the navigator when my family would take trips. I like paging through atlases for fun. So it was natural enough that I eventually determined to learn a bit about how to make them. […]

I kept up my new mapmaking hobby when I moved to Madison. It gave me something creative to do, and I have since learned that, for me, being creative is critical to keeping a positive emotional state. Making maps was the light of my day, in a time when my days were very, very dark.

I’m not unfamiliar with depression, and I found this quite moving.