Follow the Map
Whose map are you following? Do you even know why you're following it? And where are you going?
Subscribe to Compass Star Wordsmith—Because Clarity Matters (and Experience Counts)
In a time of chaotic upheaval—when information is a battlefield, trust is a currency, and the next right step feels uncertain—choosing where to turn for insight isn’t just a decision. It’s a declaration.
Facts feel flexible, faith is in short supply, and we’re inundated with dozens of conflicting opinions. If you’re looking for perspective that isn’t reactionary, reductive, or algorithm-approved, you’ve come to the right place.
Compass Star Wordsmith delivers sharp, thoughtful storytelling with the depth that only comes from lived experience. Gen X—raised on skepticism, adaptability, and analog problem-solving—has spent decades watching the world shift beneath our feet. We’ve seen the cycles, learned the patterns, and understand that true insight comes from stepping back, not just scrolling forward. And we’re not alone—Boomers, Millennials, and Gen Z all bring their own lenses to the table, and there’s value in weaving those perspectives together.
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Monsters, Myths, and Music: Mapping the Soundscapes of Legends
From the shadowy corners of folklore to the ever-changing landscapes of music, myths have always shaped how we see the world. But what if sound itself acted as mythology—a way to map emotions, histories, and hidden stories? My latest dive into legends and landscapes brings together insights from my interviews with artists across genres, from the hypnotic psychedelia of The Black Angels to the Nordic storytelling of Enslaved, the raw intensity of Full of Hell, and the boundary-pushing experimentation of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs.
Music has always been a form of mythmaking. Dreamy soundscapes can transport us like ancient legends, metal and hardcore can summon the chaos of forgotten gods, and electronic or avant-garde compositions can create entire sonic worlds that blur reality and imagination. Every genre tells a story, weaving emotions, experiences, and history into sound. Some capture longing and loss, others channel resilience and rebellion, while some create entire worlds of dreamlike escape. Each has its own legends, its own shadows, and its own way of making sense of the world.
My four pillars of rock weren’t just bands—they were architects, each shaping the foundation of modern music in their own way. Devo dismantled convention with precision and satire, proving that rock could be cerebral, weird, and way ahead of its time. Black Sabbath forged the heaviest riffs known to man, dragging the blues through the underworld and birthing something darker, louder, and truer. Rush built sonic cathedrals where technical mastery met raw emotion, reminding us that thinking and feeling aren’t mutually exclusive. And Led Zeppelin? They wove myth, blues, and sheer force into something timeless—alchemy in the form of sound. These aren’t just influences. They’re the map, the legend, the unshakable ground beneath it all.
Join me on this journey through ancient legends and electrified storytelling. How does music become myth? What monsters still haunt our maps? Let’s uncover the stories hidden in sound—read me here.
The Map Is Not the Territory
I’ve been thinking a lot about maps lately. Not just the fold-out kind that never seem to refold the same way, or the glowing blue path on a GPS screen, but the maps we carry in our heads. The ones we draw for ourselves—about who we are, where we're going, and what we think we know.
What about maps? Remember spinning a globe as a kid, eyes closed, letting fate decide your next great adventure? Maybe you’d imagine the life waiting for you in the place where your finger landed—somewhere exotic, unfamiliar, full of possibility. Or, if you were weird like me, you pinned a map to the wall and threw darts, letting chance determine the next destination for your imagined exploits.
Later, as adults, we traded in the whimsy of blind exploration for something more structured—maybe a Thomas Guide to chart our professional movements, a GPS to make sure we never took a wrong turn. But maps, like stories, can be deceiving. They offer direction, but they don’t capture the full terrain. They tell us where we should go, but not always where we need to be.
The thing about maps is that they are, by nature, incomplete. They provide a framework, a way to navigate, but they are not the landscape itself. They miss the scent of the air, the feel of gravel underfoot, the unexpected detours. And yet, we rely on them. Sometimes too much.
The Illusion of Certainty
In my years appraising real estate, I saw this firsthand. Numbers on a spreadsheet tell one story; a house, a neighborhood, a family’s history tell another. The data is useful—it helps define things in measurable terms—but it can never fully capture the life contained within four walls.
This is true for people, too. We carry around versions of others in our minds, fixed points of reference based on old interactions, assumptions, or incomplete narratives. We believe we know them. But in reality, we are all in motion, constantly changing.
Prison Maps & The Dilemma of Choice
I’ve been working on an essay about the Prisoner’s Dilemma—a concept in game theory that explores cooperation and self-interest—but the real dilemma isn’t just mathematical. It’s human.
In my recent Substack post, "Making an Enemy," I delved into the intricate dance between cooperation and self-interest, highlighting how our choices can inadvertently create adversaries. Building upon this theme, I've been exploring the Prisoner's Dilemma—a cornerstone of game theory that encapsulates the tension between individual gain and collective well-being.
The Prisoner's Dilemma presents a scenario where two individuals, isolated from each other, must each decide whether to cooperate or betray the other. The paradox lies in the fact that while mutual cooperation yields the best collective outcome, rational individuals, acting in their own self-interest, often choose to defect, leading to a worse result for both. This dilemma mirrors real-world situations where personal incentives clash with the common good, shedding light on the complexities of human decision-making.
This conundrum isn't confined to theoretical constructs; it permeates various aspects of our lives. From business negotiations to environmental conservation, the challenge remains: how do we navigate the fine line between pursuing personal benefits and fostering collective harmony? Understanding the dynamics of the Prisoner's Dilemma offers valuable insights into the mechanisms that drive cooperation and competition, and how our perceptions of trust and expectation influence our choices.
As I continue to map the landscapes of human interaction, I invite you to join me in examining how the principles underlying the Prisoner's Dilemma can inform our approach to building more cooperative societies. By recognizing the patterns that lead to mutual benefit or collective downfall, we can better navigate the dilemmas we face in our interconnected world.
The women and men I mentor inside prison walls are working from old maps—ones drawn by trauma, survival instincts, and systemic failures. Many have been told a single story about themselves for so long that they believe it. They were given a map that says, “This is who you are. This is all you can be.” And for years, they’ve followed it.
That’s the trouble with any system that tries to box us in. This is the fallacy of group identity. Intersectional theory insists that every person belongs to a predetermined map, with rigid borders drawn between the oppressed and the oppressors, the victors and the victims. But life is more complex than a simple binary, and reducing individuals to fixed coordinates ignores the shifting landscapes of experience, choice, and self-definition.
Supporters of this theory derive power by assigning maps to individuals based on immutable traits—skin color, sex, birthplace—categories that once felt unchangeable. But now, even these defining markers are fluid. Political identity, gender, and social alignment have become malleable, chosen like waypoints on a journey rather than inherited from birth.
Yet the irony remains: those who fight to break free from old categories often build new ones in their place, swapping one rigid structure for another, redrawing the map with different borders but the same limitations. Some paths are marked as inherently privileged, others as permanently disadvantaged, as if destiny were inked in before the journey even begins. It’s like the guy at AA railing against his drinking problem while chain-smoking cigarettes and mainlining coffee—blind to the fact that we’re all just one setback away from slipping into our own version of victimhood.
But here’s the thing about maps: they can be redrawn. They should be redrawn. If we’re bound by someone else’s cartography, we lose the chance to forge our own paths. Maybe it’s time to stop following the coordinates handed to us and start mapping our own way forward.
But what happens when they realize the map was flawed? That it was designed to keep them in place rather than help them move forward? That’s where things get interesting. Because at that moment, they have a choice. Do they cling to the old map, the one they know, or do they risk stepping into unfamiliar territory?
Redrawing Our Own Maps
I think about the maps I’ve followed—the ones that led me places I never expected. The roads I planned, the detours I didn’t, and the moments where the path disappeared entirely. Reconnecting with writing wasn’t in my original blueprint, at least not like this—not with this urgency, this sense of necessity. But if I had clung too tightly to the old map—the one I thought was mine—I might have missed the path that actually was.
Maybe that’s the real lesson: maps are guides, not gospel. They help us navigate, but they can’t capture everything—the detours, the dead ends, the unexpected doorways we never knew to look for. The world is bigger than the lines we draw. And so are we.
So where are you on your map? And have you ever stepped off it, only to realize that’s where the real journey begins?
Ric
The Monsters We Carry
Every culture has its monsters. Some lurk in shadowy forests, others prowl stormy seas, and some wear the faces of people we thought we knew. But the most dangerous monsters—the ones with the sharpest teeth—are the ones we carry inside us.
Watching Myths & Monsters, I was struck by how deeply these stories shape us. We like to think myths belong to the past, relics of ancient fears and simpler minds. But they are alive and well. We may not fear dragons guarding caves anymore, but we fear being trapped, unseen, or powerless. The Minotaur in his labyrinth was not just a beast; he was a metaphor for isolation and exile. Medusa was not just a monster; she was a warning about power and perception.
We inherit these stories, but we also rewrite them. The world tells us who we are—through history, through culture, through the quiet rules of society that we absorb without question. Some of us are cast as heroes before we’ve even taken our first step. Others are assigned the role of villain, their story written in bold, immovable ink. But life is rarely so simple. If you’ve ever been on the wrong side of an accusation, if you’ve ever felt misunderstood, if you’ve ever tried to break free from the person the world expects you to be, then you know: sometimes, the hardest battle isn’t against a monster. It’s against the story you’ve been forced into.
And sometimes, we cast ourselves as the monster. We believe the worst things said about us. We internalize the failures, the shame, the labels. We become what others fear or resent, not because it’s who we are, but because the map we were given doesn’t offer another route. The women and men I mentor in prison understand this deeply. Some were told from an early age that they were destined to fail. That they were dangerous. That they were unworthy of redemption. If you hear a story long enough, you start to believe it. And if the world already sees you as a monster, why not play the part?
But that’s the trick, isn’t it? Myths can be rewritten. Maps can be redrawn. Monsters can become something else entirely. The hardest thing in the world is to unlearn a story that’s been drilled into you. But it can be done. It takes questioning the narratives we’ve inherited. It takes seeing ourselves—and others—not as fixed points on a map, but as travelers, as shape-shifters, as something more than the roles we’ve been assigned. Because the real tragedy isn’t being seen as a monster. It’s never realizing that you were never one to begin with.
Who Gets to Be the Hero?
One of the men I mentor in prison told me once, “I feel like I was the villain in someone else’s story before I even had a chance to write my own.” That stayed with me. In myth, the hero and the villain are often the same person, seen from different angles. The trickster is both wise and dangerous. The warrior is both savior and destroyer.
How often do we freeze people in place—fix them in our minds as one thing, even as they struggle to become another? How often do we do that to ourselves?
I think about the myths I absorbed as a kid. The ones about what success should look like. The ones about what it means to be strong. The ones about what makes someone worthy of love. Some of those stories turned out to be useful. Some turned out to be cages.
Breaking the Curse
What myths are you living by? Are they yours, or did someone hand them to you?
There’s power in understanding the stories that shaped us. In questioning them. In deciding which ones we keep and which ones we cast off like old skins. Because the thing about myths is—they evolve. They shift with time.
And sometimes, the monster wasn’t a monster after all.
Let’s talk.
—Ric
COMING SOON: THE ALPHABET WARS OF 2025
The fault lines have been drawn, and the once-unified LGBTQ+ movement is fracturing. The Stonehill Riots have reignited a cultural battle, with accusations flying in all directions. Are gay men and lesbians—the very people who once fought for equality—now being cast as the new oppressors? Has the movement erased its own trans and drag roots, or is this a case of shifting priorities and power struggles? Is the LGB breaking free from the TQIA+? Who knew?
Here’s a few posts and notes bouncing around Substack.
Lines are being redrawn, histories are being contested, and the future of queer identity itself is at stake. Who belongs, who decides, and who gets left behind?
At Compass Star Wordsmith, we navigate the stormy seas of culture and politics, cutting through the noise to uncover the deeper currents shaping our world. If you value bold, nuanced perspectives, consider becoming a paid subscriber—or simply like and share to help keep these conversations going.
Stay tuned for an in-depth look at The Alphabet Wars of 2025—where identity, history, and ideology collide.
Man, the memories. I saw Black Sabbath in the 8th grade. Alson on the Bill was Target & Deep Purple. Mid 70s was a special time.