The Treasure Was Inside of Me All Along, Dammit
Great. Another treasure that turned out to be "inside of me all along".
Here's the treasure map, but try not to get too excited. It's really just a diagram showing the left and right hemispheres of the human brain.
There on the right is the town of Lakeland, and just like the right side of the brain, Lakeland is known as a society of artists and musicians, poets and inventors, all voluntarily co-existing in a flowing garden of sculptures, fruits, flowers and vegetables.
On the left is the town of Hill Valley, a rigorous structure of laws, rules, calculations and time, all measured by the town's accumulation of material wealth, and much like the left hemisphere of our brains, the town of Hill Valley has no sense of humor, a stern police force, and a well-built jailhouse.
The 13 Camps, and Finding the Missing 'I'
The treasure hunters who've stared at this map will often point out the 13 camps that are marked on the map, and a look at the map shows how camps A through M seem to be spread out across the two towns, or throughout the brain.
Over the years, many researchers have claimed that Camp 'I' is missing from the drawing, but it is there, right in the very center of the map. Faded and worn, or perhaps deliberately erased from the map, Camp 'I' might be best interpreted as Camp YOU, and being so centered, could be said to represent the combined qualities of both towns, or both hemispheres of the brain.
An Alchemical Wedding
By combining the qualities of the left and right hemispheres of the brain, we merge mathematics and logic with art and emotion so that the ultimate being emerges from the center, perfect opposites creating a vortex-- much like hot and cold air will merge to form a tornado.
Within this potent whirlwind, a synthesis of both sides is created, balance is attained, and wholeness can be realized by the being who 'finds Camp 'I'' on the center of the map.
That's it.
There's your treasure. Enjoy your prize. By understanding this description of the Hill Valley/Lakeland complex, a treasure hunter can be saved countless hours of searching and digging. Indeed, one need not even leave the comfort of their own skull in order to discover great wealth and fortune once Camp 'I' is located and defined.
Hill Valley
If a treasure hunter chooses to spend all of their time studying and searching the logic and math of the town of Hill Valley, they may not notice the fact that valleys are made of hills, and that hills tend to create valleys by their very nature. This was probably a deliberate distraction, a circular puzzle designed so that the legendary Camp 'I' would remain undiscovered.
Lakeland
Similarly, if a treasure hunter chooses to focus on the art and poetry of the town of Lakeland, they may fail to see that a lake cannot exist without land, and that the surrounding land dictates the very shape and depth of the lake. Again, a diversion, a red herring thrown to the right of the trail so that Camp 'I' would be overlooked once more.
The Treasure
By extracting the best logic and hard work from the left side, merging it with the humor and carefree play of the right, we might find ourselves enjoying the 'treasure' that is created in the dynamics of the two. This synthesized 'I' in the center might be the only thing that is real in this Fictionarium that we exist within, even though the treasure is made of imaginary places, two mental states that swirl together to form what we know as 'this', our world.
Now that you have your mind around the treasure, do try to spend it all in one place.
the map drawing above is taken from my Fictionarium story, published here on Steemit in 2016, and as the name implies, the story and the towns are all fiction, only the treasure is real, and it's only real when it is real-ized by the viewer. Good luck!
Why are there only 13 camps? What about the rest of the alphabet?
Everybody thought that the ones who made camp number 13 were pushing their luck, and many builders quit for superstitious reasons.
Can't argue with that logic.
When I was writing the story, I made the premise that the experimental towns were built by a government that was run by dark occultists, since the story was meant to mirror real life in its structure. I still don't really understand all of the numerology and stuff, but the number 13 seems to come up a lot for some reason, so it went into the story.
Cute story Paul. Thanks for sharing! What is the occult significance of Spooner Lake if it has any at all? Maybe its the place both the left and the right go to drown their egos?
I always figured that some of the original builders of the towns were anarchists, and the lake is named after Lysander Spooner. It's possible that some of those original builders stayed in Lakeland after the twin town complex was completed, but since I haven't really finished writing the story, I'm not sure about that yet!
Interesting. Looking forward to the rest of the story now.
How busy will you be between now and after the holidays? I'm still down to meetup sometime.
Things are pretty flexible this week, name a time and we can arrange it-- I haven't visited the library in a long time.
Excellent! But, have you seen this map? It looks like the joke is on us....
A big jester! The world is just screwing around with us, isn't it?
Have you ever looked at the words disport and dissimulation? These words, and that treasure map, might lead you to the punchline...
Ah, I see, I think... the joke is on us, by us, for our own celestial amusement. Sidesplitting!
I did initially see the jester world illustration as a mirror image, but I tend to see everything as a reflection!
And there I was thinking the two communities had pretty obvious names XD
That's a really cool map :D
Thanks! Back when I was writing episodes for Fictionarium I used this map every chance I got in the images.
Damnit! I knew I was right all along! I truly am the center of everything. Suck on that, every therapist that have told me otherwise! Ahhh it's so refreshing to realize that.
Seriously though, this is one cool layout! I like how deliberate everything is, and it's all so well thought out. I remember Fictionarium from when you last brought it up.
You are certainly the center of it all-- and so we all are! It means we are doing something extraordinary.
The map really was laid out as a mirror image of consciousness, and I tried to get as many little clues in there as I could think of. I even included more curved streets on the right (feminine) and then straight, rigid streets (masculine) on the left of the map, to correspond again with our own blueprint. The West guided by material, the East by Spiritual, etc. Fictionarium was written to mirror the world, so I wanted the towns to mirror us similarly when seen from above.